My Only

by Virodeil

Loki wishes to know who his birth parents are. He may just get more than he has bargained for and thought of. Somewhere, somewhen, somebody has been searching for him his whole life. And then, through a twist of fate… or maybe not… they meet again. And the world ends, just so.

My Only
By Rey

That pale skin, that black hair, those green eyes, that lean body, they must have come from somewhere, unmanipulated by any kind of spell or concealment, especially since they don't blend in with the average Asgardians.

Loki wishes to know who his birth parents are. He may just get more than he has bargained for and thought of.

Somewhere, somewhen, somebody has been searching for him his whole life. And then, through a twist of fate… or maybe not… they meet again.

And the world ends, just so.

(Oneshot standalone. – A twist to the more mainstream HarryPotter/Marvel crossover ideas of Loki's paternity at either end, with a smattering of Norse lore especially towards the end. Not Rey-verse.)

Story tags: Alternate Universe - Avengers (Marvel Movies), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Betrayal, Body Transformation, Canonical Character Death, Caring, Changing lives forever, Character Study, Comfort, Companions, Confinement, Confusions abound, Conversation, Death, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, End of the World, Everyone Has Issues, Feelings, Flowers, Gaining Trust, Genderfluid Harry Potter, Gentleness, Good Laufey (Marvel), Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Has a Different Name, Here come some feels, Hope, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Interspecies Romance, Jotunn Biology (Marvel), loss of a child, Lost child found, Mama Laufey, Master of Death Harry Potter, Metamorphmagus Harry Potter, Miðgarðr | Midgard, Mild Romance, Mystery, Nick Fury is Not Amused, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not A Fix-It, Not Epilogue Compliant, One Shot, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV Third Person Limited, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Reunion, Revenge, Sign Language, Single-Gendered Species, Spiritual/Supernatural, Soul-Searching, Time Travel, Uncertain Fate, Weird Biology

Author's notes: Happy holidays! Apologies that this fic doesn't make for a fluffy – or at least fluffyish – holiday story as I firstly aimed for.

Started on: 21st March 2018 at 05:17 PM
Finished on: 24th December 2020 at 04:22 AM

O-O-O-O

The simplest secrets are just that: secrets: unvarnished, uncomplicated, unlayered.

Few secrets are like that. Few of those worth keeping are like that.

So, most secrets have their own secrets, and these are worth keeping.

Sometimes, the secrets within secrets have secrets, too.

More rarely, those secrets have their own secrets.

Even rarer, there's yet another layer to these secrets.

But the rarest, most well-hidden secret is: nobody ever knows that one is keeping a secret.

O-O-O-O

Nicholas Fury, like many others in his profession, is used to secrets and cracking them. He loves them, in fact, to a certain point.

The presence of people bearing a supernatural array of could-be-deadly powers they label as "magic" is one of those.

It's a mundane secret, though, barely worth keeping.

Now, these people are usually unified, and that's the next degree of "secret"… a more dangerous one.

The truly dangerous one? Well, these unified enclaves of powerful people have their own governments and schools and secrecy rules and whatever. They can ralley to each other's aid.

Worse, they love to wipe the minds of people without their powers, if they deem those unfortunate lot are outside the need-to-know circle.

It's like a quarter – or maybe half or even three quarters – of the world is filled with intelligence agents with deadly tools that nobody else can even begin to comprehend, let alone master, with how they keep everything secret.

Nick hates it, hates them.

Unfortunately, he cannot live without them – no, their aid – sometimes.

In those times, he hates himself most of all.

And unfortunately for him, now is one of those hated times.

A delicate one at that.

A very delicate situation.

Involving a very dangerous secret.

Then, he must counter it with a very dangerous secret of his own…

Or, rather, the magic-folk's very dangerous secret.

Those freak governments all over the world know it. Some of their common people know it, too, albeit superficially. It's practically a legend.

It's got a name. Neat. Freaky as hell, too. Evil-sounding, at that. Oxymoronic, Stark would scoff flippantly, and Nick would agree with him – as much as he would hate the very thought of agreeing with that insufferable brat.

The Master of Death.

Really, now? Since when does such a primordial force have a master? Does this creature call itself God, then? Religious zealots everywhere would freak out…

But still, Nick cannot escape this duty he must perform, or things might get out of hand. They might even get out of that creature's hand, if it had one in the first place, if he waited any longer.

So, quite reluctantly, he dials a quirky number on this base's cafetaria's phone, after shooing everyone out and performing all necessary protections for the unusual site and line of the phonecall.

It's really worth the hassle. After all, he really doesn't want to be traceable by these freaks, and he would rather not sacrifice his people, if this elusive, mostly unknown creature decides to be hostile.

O-O-O-O

The Master of Death is… underwhelming, by a great degree, on first glance.

Second and third glance, too. And a closer, deeper scrutiny doesn't remedy that, either.

The Master of Death is a boy.

A tiny, scrawny, dorky teenager, or so the compromised brat known as Agent Barton would say, who swims in those overlarge everything he's wearing. He's slouched and meek and so awkward it's painful to see.

Nick knows there are layers to everyone, spy or not; and in an organisation of spies, those layers are far deeper than most. But this… this…

"What's your name, boy?" he forces himself to ask.

And the boy flinches to that. Perfect. The cherry on top of the ice cream, so to say.

SHIELD doesn't need this specimen. The world can't rely on… this.

"I don't have much time, boy. Answer me, please. – You came recommended, but they didn't tell me anything, so what's even your name and designation, agent?"

Their eyes meet: single brown on cheap-and-taped-spectacle-framed green.

But, if Nick thought of glimpsing secrets – or at least tells – through the boy's eyes, now his disappointment meter is nearly breaking the scale. Those eyes are… just… blank, almost lifeless; eyes of an abused and neglected teenager, not a powerful being out of legend.

Worse yet, the silence persists, even after his last demand, less polite than before.

He really doesn't have time for this.

"Shall I call you Agent MOD, then?" he grits out at length, as sarcastic as he can make it.

But, wonder of all wonders… or maybe not… the boy nods, looking down at that pair of atrocious, atrociously broken shoes – or maybe little boats, ridiculously large as they are in comparison to the boy's tiny, scrawny frame.

Nick calls for Agent Romanova right after shooing the boy out. – No, he can't deal with the boy personally, although he meant to do so at first for various reasons. His blood pressure won't survive the proximity a second time, he fears, even if just for a short while. The boy's worse than Stark!

After the Tesseract is found, though… Well, that is a different matter entirely. He'll get that boy talking like a canary, with or without the help of his agents.

O-O-O-O

Natalia Alianovna is a good infiltrator, a better detector of lies, an even better impersonator, and the best faker all in all.

But, even drawing from her significant arsenal of skills and experiences, she has no clue, whatsoever, of how the new freelance agent called the Master of Death has changed so drastically in minutes, even though Director Fury told her in that brief time that the agent possesses an array of powers called "magic."

Agent MOD, as Fury said it, is not a boy, nor a man.

Agent MOD is a woman, with thick, long, loose, wavy black hair framing aristocratic features, decorated further by vivid, almond-shaped green eyes shining like twin emeralds. The woman is of a height with her, and garbed in what looks like simple-but-nice-and-comfortable, semi-loose green snakeskin armour, though there's no visible weapon anywhere.

She… likes the woman, or at least the woman's look, on first sight.

But it gets her wondering, doesn't it: How could Director Fury be so wrong?

Because yes, this woman acts subdued, or maybe she's subdued in personality indeed, but she looks and feels intelligent, almost regal in her silent, unintrusive observation of everything all round her. Furthermore, there are no spectacles on sight, she's certainly not male or a child, and she's quietly confident plus open to boot instead of cowed.

"Hello," Tasha finds herself blurting softly; shily at that, and hopeful, as shy and hopeful as her harsh, prolonged training and missions beginning right from her nonexistent childhood have shaped and permited her to feel.

The woman smiles, with startling warmth and eagerness, as if saying "Hello" back to a new friend, albeit without words, and Tasha finds herself reciprocating.

"What's your name? I'm Natasha," she tries, next, hoping to return to her mission imperative, as she beckons the woman to her assigned room in this particular base.

No answer. – Fury was right on one account, then; or maybe, the woman just hasn't warmed up yet to her.

She can remedy this… maybe.

"Do you like perfumes?" she asks, as they seat themselves side by side on the edge of her bed, when her eyes land on the exorbitantly priced bottle resting on the nightstand, still there from her last infiltration mission. Getting a silent headshake, she continues, "Why?"

And, wonder of all wonders, the woman answers, albeit by handsigns. "They are usually too sharp for my nose, or too nauseating. I love flowers in general, though."

She follows the woman's lead, thankful that she knows handsigns – or at least the ASL that the woman happens to be using. "Which flower do you like most?"

Something like grief – of all things – passes through those open, vivid green eyes, dulling them briefly like clouds passing over the sun. But the woman does answer, to Tasha's inward surprise, although the pause in between question and answer would be awkward if she were "normal."

"M-O-L-T-E," the woman signs, with an air of wistful longing and desolation so old it makes Tasha ache in her bones and heart and lungs.

"I don't recognise the name. Can you describe it for me?" Honest curiosity and half-forsaken duty are in one mind; and somehow, someway, a vague plan totally unrelated to duties begins to flicker at the back of her thoughts, in the deepest kernel of her nearly nonexistent heart.

And, as the woman expounds wide and deep about the flower, including where she encountered fields of it in the wild, with her gaze so starkly hollow that Tasha wonders why those green eyes are not overflowing with tears by now, the plan begins to solidify.

Fury wants the Tesseract. Tasha wants molte.

O-O-O-O

Phillip Coulson feels very, very, very flustered, and wretched to boot.

No. Not wretched. Devastated.

Both of his folks are AWOL, possibly in Loki's grasp somehow, and now he is to cage a little boy, because that little boy has last been seen with the newly AWOL Tasha, by eye witnesses.

Eye witnesses only, because none of the security cameras can catch the shape and form and sound of the boy , which has made Fury doubly furious and frightened.

And here he is, in Tasha's room, looking at the said little boy seated alone on the edge of Tasha's bed, looking bewildered and thoughtful and somehow achingly wistful and lost, clutching at far-oversized stained and ratty garments as if to a lifeline.

He should have instinctively reached for his handgun. This boy is, after all, somehow, set up there in the most dangerous non-SHIELD-personnel level, alongside Loki and Dr. Banner, and he knows perfectly well that looking young and cute and weak-looking doesn't mean being truly vulnerable. However, instead, he finds himself seated beside his target, stalling, hoping he won't have to cage such woebegone kid.

"Hello," he greets the little lad, smiling wanly. He gets the same wan smile as the answer, as well as a small nod.

"Do you know where Natasha is?" he gets to the point, not wanting Fury to be madder, not wanting to have a reason to cage the boy over his head when interacting with the said boy.

Not wanting to get closer to the little lonely child, however his heart yearns for it by instinct, if he'll end up doing that to the said child.

A child who looks and feels somewhat like Phil himself had, in that distant past.

And the child shrugs, openly, before signing, "She said she would be back soon. I do not know where she is. She did not tell me."

Phil exhales a long, quiet sigh to that.

Tasha likes to test the boundaries, sometimes, to know for herself that she is not bound tight to someone else's will like a wooden puppet; dark legacy from her previous handlers, from her previous organisations, from her previous life. It doesn't surprise Phil that she stole away without telling anyone, least of all this little boy.

He won't ever admit to anybody that he is relieved, at this point, at a simple answer. After decades as a spy, he thought he'd had his heart stamped mostly out of him. This… opens some venues, some loopholes…

"Did you go somewhere before you came here?" he forces himself to continue. Time is of the escence here.

A headshake on even-more-bewildered features answers him.

What did the both of you talk about?"

"Perfumes, then flowers, then favourite flower."

Phil frowns. Perfumes? Flowers? Whyever would Natasha talk about such things with a boy?

"Nothing else?"

Another headshake.

Then the boy asks a question of his own, ponderously signing, "Where is she? Why are you so worried? Is she bad? She did not look and feel like a bad person."

"No," Phil murmurs wistfully. "She is a good person, deep down. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise."

Another wan smile quirks the reluctant tips of his lips up. "She was made into a bad person, when she was small. Until now, people still think she is bad."

An answering wan smile meets him below solemn bespectacled eyes. "All monsters are made, not born," the boy signs. "All monsters can be good again, too, if they wish it."

Phil chuckles flatly, and ruffles the black bird's nest on top of that little head with reluctantly growing fondness. "You're a smart one, aren't you? Where did you read it, son?"

Something suspiciously like yearning – of all things – passes by those green eyes on the last word, and Phil's heart clenches. But he doesn't get the chance to clarify – rectify – something in his words that must be a sore subject for this poor child.

Because the said poor child is signing again, and Phil is floored by the answer to what should have been a retorical question:

"I saw it. I experienced it."

"Are you a monster, now?" Phil tries to keep his tone light and his countenance mild, really he does.

The tiny smile is back on the boy's face again, wanner than before. "I do not think so," he signs, slowly, as if thinking about it. "Some say I am, some say not. It is up to you, what you think I am."

And then, a trio of agents burst into the room, active guns first, and Phil has no choice but to gather the boy into his arms, to put this wise, lonely child into the cage prepared for the Hulk, which will most likely contain Loki once the madman is captured.

Nobody can dictate what he thinks, though.

"You are not a monster, son," he mouths to the boy as he lowers the latter onto the metal cot on the other end of the cage, with his back to the security camera. "Keep yourself that way, please… and keep yourself alive. – I'm sorry I'm doing this. I was commanded to. I hope you don't stay long here, and not because you're dead. I'll try to keep a lookout for you."

A harsh and blunt thing to say to a boy, especially to one that looks to be needing warm bearhugs instead of a cold, dangerous cage for cold, dangerous people. But it's the only honest and comforting thing Phil can say, and he hopes the boy can understand that – later, if not now.

He turns away quickly and exits the cage in like manner, once he's said his piece.

He is afraid.

Afraid that he will flee the country, flee SHIELD, with the boy, if he stays any longer.

Deep down, he wonders if Natasha felt the same, and is even now doing something for the boy.

Deep down, he wonders if he should fear the boy because of that.

Deep down, the first thought stays, while the latter quickly puffs out.

Because he would like to think he is a rather good judge of character. Clint wouldn't be a SHIELD agent, otherwise, and nor would Natasha.

What he said to the little boy in that dangerous cage, it's all the truth that he knows.

The boy is not a monster.

O-O-O-O

The woman is still in her assigned room, when Tasha returns, dodging a shipful of wary and skittish agents and personnel, with her precious, hard-to-find cargo carefully clasp in a clothbag in her arms.

"Are this molte flowers?" she asks, smiling, as she unclasps the bag from her embrace and loosens its drawstring.

The sunshiny, watery smile she receives is worth the hassle, and worth the severe tongue-lashing that Director Fury will most likely give, too.

…In addition to the jailtime – or 'disappearance' – that the director might arrange.

But she could always leave SHIELD and strike out on her own again. Phil might be persuaded to follow.

And she could get this woman – this magical woman – to perhaps, maybe, hopefully,… help her get Clint back.

She knows of debts and repayments. This woman most likely knows, as well.

But for now, for this minute, she can just sit down and enjoy how carefully and lovingly the woman cradles her gift, as if holding a beloved baby, with heartbreaking yearning that she can sadly relate to at some level.

And the endless "Thank you" the woman keeps signing to her, alongside glances of intense, pure gratitude? It's the bonus, a surprisingly gratifying one at that.

When the agents come for her, wary and hostile and still just as skittish, Tasha feels strangely placid even somewhat peaceful.

She privately acknowledges the all-too-rare state as being given freely by the woman, and thus the debt is paid in full.

Well, she will just have to indebt herself to the woman later, if so, in exchange for helping Clint. Besides, Clint would more than likely rave, when he's back in his mind, if he somehow got wind that his life's traded with some flower from the frozen back-end of nowhere…. She would never live it down, in that case.

Oh, well. She's already accumulating a small debt to the woman, just for that.

O-O-O-O

Bruce Banner says nothing when he enters the lab he's supposed to work in, ushered by a team of jittery, trigger-happy SHIELD agents. Somebody is already inside, but the agents don't seem to notice her, let alone mind her presence, so he assumes she'll be his coworker in this surreal labwork, or a lab assistant in the least.

"Hello, I'm Bruce Banner. Umm, nice to meet you, Miss…?"

The young, bespectacled woman, clad in casual, somewhat worn bottle-green button-down and grafite-grey trousers, welcomes his offered handshake readily and quite warmly – far warmer than he's expected from this place. She even beams happily at him, though, strangely for a lab assistant, there's a lack of eagerness to work on science in that beautifully friendly and unafraid smile.

But she doesn't talk back. She just… smiles, with her lips and her startlingly green eyes, and motions expansively at the room at large with the hand that isn't still clasping his own appendage, with a curious air about her that seems to broadcast: "This place is cool! Can we play now? Will you show me how?"

And he falls into her world, as readily and almost as warmly as she has welcomed him, even if he doesn't know her name.

Well, all these years in the run, he's learnt dearly that names mean something, that it's someone's choice to give someone else his or her name, that names can paradoxically mean less in certain things – including now. So, he doesn't mind her keeping mum about hers.

He chatters happily to her about what they are supposed to do right now, instead. She listens attentively and asks intelligent questions through looks and body language and motions, before progressing to a spare computer screen and keyboard when the Q-and-A session has grown more intricate.

In-between calibrating and recalibrating machines, while gathering up data, and practically whenever his mouth shuts up for a moment, there is always a glass of water or a morsel of tasty-and-filling finger-food at hand, provided so casually by this unspeaking, helpful, warm lab assistant of his.

Her open care and honest friendliness make him achingly miss Betty, so much.

He tells her that, as his shoulders automatically hunch in, trying to protect himself from… something.

But she just… nods.

Well, what does he expect, anyway? For Betty to suddenly materialise beside him, still loving this monster in man-skin? Ha! Silly Bruce.

The lovely lab assistant doesn't just stop there, though. Warmly, eagerly, somehow unintrusively, she asks about how Betty was like, about what Betty's favourites were, about what made Betty peeved, about Betty and Hulk, about his desire above all things to be with Betty, about the Other Guy and the rages, about how both he and the Other Guy concur that they are very much smitten with the feisty Dr. Betty Ross…

A small, warm, wet towel appears before him, extended by a slender but strong feminine hand, and Bruce realises that he has been crying.

But this, it's not filled with bitterness, not wholely bitter at least, which is a far cry from what has been hounding him his whole life after that fateful day.

Grief that has never been transformed into tears, not even when his own father killed his own mother before him in that distant childhood he would like to forget.

He hugs her close, this waif-like girl, and she hugs him close, unspeaking but smiling gently.

And then she reaches out to her appropriated keyboard and writes, as surely and concisely as though she were making a vow: "You will see her again."

He keeps her to that vow. And for once, he believes that there is one promise in his life that will not be broken.

O-O-O-O

Steven Rogers stirs uneasily inside, as his feet bring him ever deeper into the detention block.

Director Fury has tasked him with checking on one of the prisoners; the dangerous one stowed in the highest-level cell, in fact. He comes equipped with a gun and his shield, although he is not in uniform right now, for just this occasion.

But he cannot help think that this preparation has been wholely inadequate.

Still, a soldier-with-orders that he is, he marches on.

Director Fury told him that the prisoner in question is a highly skilled, extremely dangerous, otherwise unknown teenager in possession of powers that some would call "magic." Director Fury also said that the teenager's name is "Master of Death," and admited to have tried to recruit the said teenager into the ranks of SHIELD, before "Master of Death" somehow managed to incite one of SHIELD's best and most dangerous assets into going AWOL for hours.

But on his way, as he received discrete directions to the detention block from Agent Coulson, Steve heard differently, and saw differently, if from a second-hand account.

Agent Coulson, who had been so awe-struck and simply awkward in his presence, was then somehow unaffected by his Captain America image, the very thing that had made the competent agent – the best handler in SHIELD, according to rumours – lost his composure in the first place.

That moment, in between one instructed direction and the next, in a deserted hallway adjoining two crowded ones, the agent breathed quickly in a tone so urgent that Steve couldn't help but to focus his utmost attention to it: "Don't judge him too harshly, please, Captain Rogers. The boy – he may be a boy, he may be a teenager, he may be a girl in disguise even – but He's done no wrong, so far. Natasha's my asset, I know her, and she never does anything without a reason. She returned here, although she knew she would be in trouble, just to give him – or her – flowers. You will see her near his cell, Captain; talk to her, ask her."

Steve doesn't know who to believe, let alone who to trust, having been given such differing accounts. And against such an unknown, dangerous prisoner, this sort of mental condition can be fatal. The prisoner could run rings round him, before sending him into permanent death, if he were not careful, if he didn't get all the information.

Well, Agent Coulson wanted him to speak to this Natasha… He'll ask her, then.

O-O-O-O

A small, skinny little girl, practically swimming in the rags she's wearing, greets Steve's sight, in the transparent little cell where Agent Coulson told him "Master of Death" would be found.

She is seated on the metal shelf that can act as a bed in the cell, hugging a clothsack of flowers carefully but tightly to her chest, as if fearing he would take it away from her. A pair of battered, taped-up, round, black-framed spectacles ring her emerald-green eyes and drown her thin face, as she looks up to him silently under uneven fringes of pitch-black hair.

"Hello," he murmurs, smiling despite himself.

The child nods back in greeting, a little cautiously.

"Do you know why you are here?" he asks, in an even softer voice, feeling wretched that he has to ask such a question.

The little girl hesitates for a moment, then nods her head.

Steve's heart squeezes, mercilessly, on the brink of shattering.

"Why…" His voice breaks a little. – "Why did you have to get Agent Romanova into trouble for those flowers?" He wants to say that, to ask that, but the sight of those possessive little fragile hands checks his tongue.

It doesn't check his thoughts, though, and apparently the girl can read minds as well on the top of her purported other powers; or maybe she just anticipates the accusation. – Either way, her expression, which he hasn't noticed has been somewhat hopeful, falls.

She looks at him, at the flowers, at him again… then proffers the flowers to him.

Steve scrambles back, as if the flowers were a bomb waiting to explode in his hands, as if she could even reach through the glass divider that separates the both of them.

He shakes his head, clutches the gun and the shield tightly, and looks away.

"Why," he tries to begin again, forcing his mind to do the same, to think just on his question: "Why do you appear different to everyone?" – It's a more benign subject, isn't it? A more important one, too?

To his relief, she retracts the flowers.

But to his bafflement, she looks baffled.

She gives him a questioning look. So, hoping that he has interpreted her expression rightly, he explains, "Director Fury said you're a teenage boy with short hair and taped-up round glasses; he said you're in shabby, far-oversized clothes. Agent Coulson said you're a little boy but with the same aspects. Agent Romanova said you're a woman with long loose hair and without glasses, and she said you're wearing green snakeskin leather armour but without weapons. And here, you look like a little girl to me, with long loose hair, but with the aspects quite similar to those seen by Director Fury and Agent Coulson."

The little girl looks thoughtful, with traces of the bewilderment lingering on her open face.

"You have black hair and green eyes, at least we agree on that," Steve points out, trying to chivvy the conversation along before Director Fury gets too impatient and recalls him from access to this sad, lonely enigma. "They also said you never talked… and here I'm finding out the same. Can't you talk? Or do you just don't want to talk?"

Oddly, she smiles to that – the speculations, the desire to understand – and it conveys so much to the reluctant interrogator: rueful understanding, apologetic denial.

"Could you please tell me why you can't talk? Is it… what you got from birth?"

She touches at the side of her horribly battered spectacles, then lifts a patch of her horrible excuse of clothing, then shows him the pallid twigs she calls arms and hands, then wave one of those arms round her to the austere cage she is trapped inside, all alone.

Steve's breath hitches. His heart starts to pound in offence, rage, fury for her.

She cannot talk because she has been long abused.

The gun and shield clatter on the floor as he takes a seat opposite the sad little thing, and he tries his best to give her a warm, genuine smile.

No, Steven Grant Rogers has never been and will never be an abuser.

So he keeps her company as long as he can: chatting with her instead of interrogating, asking yes-or-no questions that she can answer easily, answering her questions that he manages to interpret.

When Fury comes storming in, the both of them are definitely friends.

Steve's hand meets with the shadow of the child's own tiny, bony appendage across the glass divide of the cage in farewell, when the Director shoos him away.

His heart clenches horribly.

It feels so much – too much – like farewelling a caged, abused animal.

O-O-O-O

Anthony Edward Stark never does well with many, many things. Orders and threats, for one. Blackmails and extortions and manipulations, for two. Chaos that he doesn't instigate and plans that he doesn't make, for three.

And SHIELD, for four. Because it was made by Dad, funded by Dad, dedicated by Dad primarily to recover Captain bloody America, and instructed by Dad to monitor him in the event of all "parental figures" – including bloody Obadiah Stane – expiring. Dad spent most of his time with it, too, and with the Captain America expeditions, and with the invention of things to sell, and none for his own only child.

And just now, he got "escorted" to SHIELD's air base, definitely without his willing cooperation , let alone his say-so, to help them with an… investation… of something.

Something that's already there, plus another thing – a loose, destructive, mind-controlling alien somewhere in the world, or so Fury tells him.

Fucking Fury.

Fucking useless info.

Fucking pushy, mindless agents.

Fucking stupid, inferior lab.

And then, when the agents are gone and the lab's door is sealed from the outside, Tony's made aware of somebody else inside: a man with old, bright green, piercing eyes and ageless face, lean but wiry, topped with stylishly messy hair, clothed simply in a somewhat worn green shirt and dark grey trousers, who looks at the beleaguered inventor with… sympathy?

"Who're you? Tony gapes, freezing on the middle of the alien place that's totally not his home.

He gets a shrug and a light, self-depricating smile, for that.

"Why're you here?" he tries, next.

The mystery man waves his hands at the surrounding lab, in answer, looking half-way like he's playing duckling mimicry.

Tony's lips twitch against his will. `An entertaining man like this,` he thinks. `Worth the hassle.`

So he presses the unknown but funny intruder into becoming his lab assistant, and revels in the fact that the said intruder is much less of a hassle than Dum-E, You and Butterfingers combined.

He chatters on as he makes the computer program to track the Tessaract, and drinks the cupfuls of cool, fresh water when he finds it on the desk he's commandeered, and eats the small bowlfuls of diced fruits and bite-sized sandwiches and savoury crackers likewise. The other man doesn't seek to get overly close to him or shut him up or lick his boots or act high-and-mighty, in the meantime.

The said man even acts as sounding board to him on occasion! Well, the replies and suggestions are delivered by briefly hijacking Tony's monitor screen, but Tony can totally live with that, as his data isn't touched by the interruptions, and he got a nice lab assistant for that price alone.

Tony doesn't immediately leave the lab or even notify Fury, though, once he's finished with the program. He's too busy exchanging sucky childhood tales with his assistant, unloading his burdens like he never did before.

He feels unexpectedly lost when the nice assistant excuses himself from the conversation, citing a need to replenish their water and food supplies.

And then, moments after the other man is gone, Bruce fucking Banner enters….

"I'm in heaven," Tony proclaims grandly with a wolfish grin. "Hello! I admire you so much, and Hulk, too!"

"Surely not just because of me?" Mr. nuclear-physicist Banner grins back, stretching out a hand for a firm handshake. "You looked blissful already before that. Watched a nice video?"

Tony waves him to a seat – a different seat from the one occupied by his lab assistant. "Nope," the inventor declares smugly. "I got myself an awesome lab assistant! He helped me make the program–" `–and with so many other, better things–` "–so now we just need to brainstorm for what's next."

They do improve the program together, and debate on a few ways to utilise it to find the best and quickest way to the Tessaract in the meantime, but it's not the only thing they focus on.

Because, apparently, Brucey got a nice lab assistant, too, and he's busy playfully-but-seriously defending her whenever Tony raves about his lab assistant.

It gives Tony ideas….

O-O-O-O

A little boy with messy black hair and bright almond-shaped green eyes stows himself away in the quinjet bound for Stuttgart, Germany. Philip Coulson notices his presence, as he doesn't seek to hide himself behind any of the seats and crates towering over him, but says nothing.

The lad shouldn't be here, but he is harmless, and Phil has greater concerns to deal with, in any case.

Who knows, the little one who has stolen the hearts of Phil himself, Natasha, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner might also thaw the heart of a would-be world conquerer and the Tessaract thief….

O-O-O-O

The gestures of the quarry are just as grandiose and gaudy as the clothing he wears. It is the very first thing that registers in Natalia Alianovna's mind, oddly enough, instead of possible ways to topple him from his proverbial high horse.

Odder yet, the quarry looks… familiar, and not because she has been studying every footage that she could get about him. That hair, that complexion, that body type, those eyes….

She looks to her left, to where her friend – who has unrepentently and blatantly stowed herself away in the quinjet – has just taken a seat.

Her friend who looks so much like the madman orating outside of the quinjet.

"Yours?" she murmurs to the other woman, whose gaze has never left Loki's form since the quinjet touched down.

The sad, longing nod that she receives is enough for Tasha.

She gives Loki a warning, instead of immediately striking him down.

Unfortunately, Loki seems beyond reason, by now.

"Should I send him to you?" she murmurs to her friend, next, while Iron Man and Captain America are engaging Loki.

"The child will be brought here," is what her friend predicts.

And… well, the woman is right about that. Loki surrenders and lets himself be ushered to the quinjet.

"It is my time to go, for now," she signs regretfully just as the two men are ushering the deceptively docile Loki into a seat. "I shall retrieve your missing friend and the missing scientist and put them here."

Tasha fights to keep her composure. It's even worse when her friend hugs her tight just before vanishing into thin air along with the newly captured Loki.

O-O-O-O

The first thing that Clinton Barton, spy and guard agent of SHIELD and a damned good archer if he says so himself, knows – is truly aware of, as himself – is the figure shrouded in elegant black cloak looming over him. But, despite the posture, the appearance and the aura of whoever-it-is, he only feels peace and a rather morbid curiosity.

"Is it my time?" he wonders aloud.

The figure shakes its head and, of all things, signs "Not yet" in ASL.

"What do you want with me, then?" He ought to have been more wary, maybe, or even alarmed, but it's somehow hard to be so at present. He got the gut feeling that the figure's the one who broke him free of whatever made him do all those to fellow SHIELD agents and more, so he's pretty sure that it's not harmful to him.

Death is not harmful, after all, when done right and in the right time. He knows it well, and he knows that there are fates worse than death, like the one this whoever-it-is broke him out of.

"Repaying kindness owed to a lovely soul," comes the answer, in another series of signs given by black-gloved hands, and Clint would swear that the possible soul-reaper or something is smiling fondly when saying that.

He's got no chance to dig further into the matter, sadly. Because, between one moment and the next, he finds himself seated on an aeroplane seat in what looks and feels like a quinjet, being loomed over by the very, very, very shocked and confused Iron Man and Captain America.

Presented with this, all that he can think of and say is: "Oh, hell! I got to chat with the Reaper and now I see your mugs. Not fun."

O-O-O-O

Erik Selvig is a pursuer of knowledge, first and foremost. He has no use for power, glory or intimidation, even to gain knowledge, because he knows knowledge gained that way is usually paltry, empty and/or dubious in its wholeness and/or veracity.

His forceful induction into SHIELD's ranks, case in point.

Oh, he gives SHIELD what they wish for: measures of energy output, possible uses, possible continuity and how to best and safest harness the Tessaract. His own life and wellness and freedom – as well as those of Jane's and Darcy's – are in the line, after all. But he never tells them that the Tessaract is sentient in a way and detests being so roughly handled and used by puny humans with dilutions of grandure and might. He never tells them that it shows so much to him: snippets of places and events and feats and ideas that awe and humble him in equal measure.

The Tessaract grumbles when its sister-stone – of the mind instead of space – seeks to overcome his psyche. It claims him, and so the sister-stone only has tenuous grip on him, almost like the person who has just attempted to mind-control him.

The Tessaract shows him a bluely glowing artefact similar to it, when he inquires about the entity that has prior claim on his new, temporary master, even as he tinkers with the Tessaract with permission from it to open a portal to another region of space later – much, much later, as hinted by that poor, reluctant master. The similar blue artefact is a stabiliser and terra-former for one specific planet, tied to the bloodline of its main caretakers, and it has been similarly seized from its home among a race of giant, blue-skinned aliens by Asgard – by Thor's people.

Well, go figure. Apparently legends can be so very twisted from the truth. The æsir are apparently far closer to their Viking worshippers than legends would say!

Erik is so glad to know the truth, he is. Oh, and rueful, as well. He must tell Jane about this later and find a way to show her what he has found about Thor's people. SHIELD is much enough already; he doesn't want any of them to tangle with a bigger threat.

And then, all of a sudden, as the Tessaract is showing him a battle between Thor's people and the blue giants on the northern part of Earth that is nowadays called Norway, his homeland, another entity quietly joins the two of them.

`I met a great woman there,` the new entity comments mildly, reminiscently, fondly, as if it could also see the event recalled by the Tessaract, and as if they were friends walking together down the memory lane while watching a homemade video. `She is usually mild and calm, but she can be very feisty when the situation requires it. She was pregnant, but she led from the front, to safeguard her people who have long settled there.`

Erik smiles. The Tessaract doesn't show who the newcomer is talking about, but he can very well imagine it, and he finds himself liking the unknown woman similarly.

`She dared court me when she saw me, but never for my power or prestige,` the newcomer chuckles with greater fondness towards the unknown woman. `I chose to contribute to the child she was carrying, then, and to protect the two of them afterwards. People called me Striker, but she named me Beloved.

`She lost the child to Asgard later on, but she was unable to request me for help, as I was long temporally displace,` it continues in a heavier, sadder tone, before perking right back up and declares, `But now I have found our child, and I shall set things right. The child should be with its mother, after all. It is just proper.`

The Tessaract bids him farewell, then, and, in the next moment, Erik finds himself seated in a flying aeroplane among vaguely familiar people – SHIELD's people, mostly.

He blinks in surprise and inwardly scrambles to adjust his senses, focus and perception. But when he feels more settled, despite the questions and suspicious looks trained on him from all sides, he inwardly wishes the best for the Tessaract and whoever-it-is who was trying to return a child to its mother.

It is a far-more-wholesome thought than thinking of a portal for an invading force of aliens or weapons made without permission from a sentient entity.

Who knows, the Tessaract might invite him to the party, once the child has been reunited with the fretful mother.

O-O-O-O

Once, there was a boy named Harry James Potter, who was later dubbed "the Boy Who Lived," who grew up stunted in various aspects into a young man, whose moniker was 'upgraded' into "the Man Who Conquered" after being forced to kill a madman again and again and again and again since the ripe old age of eleven.

Once, there was a fame-beleaguered man who quitted the law-enforcement force because he was fed up with fighting the government in addition to fighting the endless crimes and his own fame, who fled into the arms of a secretive organisation studying the esoteric to be a hands-on researcher in search of peace and freedom, who did not find both anyway as fellow researchers were much too enamoured with his new status as "the Master of Death" – a very misleading thing, in his opinion.

But the new moniker netted him the assignment to study death, anyway, and he plodded along, drawn half by duty and half by morbid fascination. All along, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Stone of Resurrection and the Stick of Death never failed to accompany him, however much he tried to get rid of all but the cloak.

They kept him company even when a group of would-be assassins – jealous fellow researchers – ambushed him, threw the looping chain of a pre-prepared Time Turner round him, then shoved him into the Veil of Death, all in the name of research.

He emerged not dead from the Veil, but not unchanged either.

He was – and is – not Death, not the Master of Death, but something that straddles the line between life and death; a tangible personification of death that is nonetheless helpless to enact or prevent it directly; a manifested, knowing, personalised perception of death in the eyes of each living individual.

An abomination.

He is not even only a he anymore, or possessed of the urges of a living being.

But even so, someone – a giant, blue, androgynous someone – enjoyed the company of this newborn entity. Laufey, they – she, she was pleased to be known – were called: the reluctant leader of a semi-nomadic people spread in many worlds and many dimensions, who was struggling to defend an Earth settlement of farmers and fishers of her race, who had in turn been living peacefully in what would become Norway for thousands of years already before a bunch of human-like warriors came and tried to drive them away from their homes.

This new entity then found that, even though the biological urges were not there, some emotional touch remained, and also the previous personality, if muted. Because it found itself reciprocating the enjoyment she felt towards its company, in whatever form it took, which was nearly as much as she did regarding the child growing in her womb.

It found itself growing fond of the child, in turn.

And now it found that it could still be ecstatic, because it felt so when she offered it to contribute in the makeup of her child as the latter jestated. "Among my people, a fetus could be physically influenced by more than just their dam – and their sire, if the dam does not just form the fetus by themself," she explained as the both of them lay entangled in her tent on her bedding. "I found myself very fond of you, and your atributes are not to scoff at, either. Your contribution will be a great addition for this, then, my firstborn."

The brief time that they spent with each other was the sweetest and the greatest that this abomination had ever felt till that point. It had a lover who accepted it as it was. It had a child whom it contributed to and seemed receptive towards it. It had an undemanding, unconditional companionship even in the midst of a wretched struggle between life and death.

It was terribly furious, therefore, when the hasslers were beginning to target the woman, especially her belly.

It could not affect death directly, but there are many, many, many ways to do it indirectly.

It had rejected to be known as a cunning, resourceful wizard, a lifetime ago, but now it embraced both aspects heartily, for the sake of a child and the beloved woman carrying it.

Soon, it gained a new moniker – Striker, and variations of it – but this time it embraced the name, because it had really earned such name by itself… and the name alone soon made the hasslers hesitate before even rallying forth.

But sadly, as are all things in both of its lifetimes, good things come to an end so quickly.

Witnessed by its horror-stricken, grief-stricken lover, the abomination was somehow banished by a group of witches and wizards under the honeyed, misleading words of the hasslers. It managed to curse both the magical folk and the hasslers before being flung away through space and time, but still.

It found itself reappearing right beside the Veil of Death… which was no longer an archway or covered by a tattered black cloth.

The Veil of Death was no more. Now there was just a pile of rock crumbles on the dais.

But the betrayers – the supposedly fellow researchers who hadn't even asked for its permission to experiment on it – were still there, gawking at it and the no-longer-there Veil of Death.

Betrayers twice over, in fact, as it could sense its curse still wound round their souls, if not as tightly as it knew the curse was – had been – on the first generation.

It renewed the curse, then, doubly so.

They were going to know happiness, only to be wrenched away from such soon enough, like they and their ancestors had done to it.

And then, the abomination went to work, tracing the names "Farbauti", "Laufey" and "Loki/Loptr" – Laufey had dithered much between the two, last it knew, and, in exasperation, it had suggested the child to bear both names – from the anals of history.

Sadly, like all such old records, having travelled through so much time, space, and mouths with the attached minds, the pieces of truth had long been twisted into fanciful, horrible, outlandish legends, or reduced to mere passing mentions, or vanished altogether.

For one, it had certainly not impregnated Laufey by striking her with lightning. The legends were wrong on both counts.

For two… well, suffice to say, if the legends of "Loki Laufeyjarson" were at all correct, this utterly furious being was – is – going to have words with both the child and the ones hurting "Loki Laufeyjarson" so.

And then it's going to hunt down and gather its lover, child and grandchildren, screw the Ragnarok. It has family now and it's not going to let them go, let alone let them being shucked aside, imprisoned or tortured.

The assignment to venture to the non-magical side of the United States to deal with "extraterrestrial incursion" is quite welcome in its eyes, therefore, especially when the head of the researchers – the "Unspeakables", they amusingly name themselves – mentions that the perpetrator calls himself Loki – "Loki Odinson", but still!

It ventures out to the unfamiliar living world for the first time as a… halfling… in this excursion. A few individuals stand out to it among the masses, mainly because they interact personally with it: Nicholas Fury, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Philip Coulson, Steven Rogers, Bruce Banner, Anthony Stark, Clinton Barton, Erik Selvig. They are all acquainted with death, but only three really see this warped personfication of death as a friend: Tasha, Bruce and Tony.

It cherishes the feeling, the individuals, their time together. But its main goal remains unchanged, its main path remains unaltered.

"Loki Odinson" looks rather like its past self, if far more battered, once it has acquired him and healed him, tearing away all the unwanted influences from his body, mind and soul in the process. But physical appearance is never this being's measurement of kinship or beauty, even in its previous lifetime, and such won't start now. Loki's soul, a chunk of Laufey's that has grown up if stunted, called to it even as the aeroplane it'd stowed itself in approached him.

And the previous ties snapped close round the two of them when it had the child in its arms at long last.

And now, with the healed-and-hale child wriggling and squawking in its arms, it traverses Laufey's homeland in hopeful, trepidatious search of its poor lover – the wriggly, squawky child's mother, the determined leader, the caring healer.

Only to find that the child has killed his own mother in twisted, misguided loyalty to a liesmith, power-hungry king.

Ragnarok begins, just so.