Fury droned on about details for the latest mission.
"Stark!" He snapped out. Tony raised an eyebrow.
"By all means, continue talking."
"Is there something more important than the Avengers' next mission?"
A flash of heat ran up his arm. He groaned and rolled his eyes.
"My next mission."
"What are you-?"
Tony held up a hand for silence and closed his eyes. When he opened then again, he was livid and his eyes were bright crimson.
"One of you is going to explain this." Fury growled when Tony disappeared.
"I'm not sure we're at liberty to tell, sir." Natasha admitted. Their first encounter with the Mistress Death hadn't exactly been on the best of terms, but not the worst of them either. She was hoping that neutrality could be maintained, but the more people found out the truth, the more unbalance there would be.
"Which means…"
"You'll have to take it up with whoever he answers to for this stuff." Clint offered, having come to the same conclusion she did.
"And who is that?" Fury demanded. Had hi agents been compromised by the billionaire?
"If I tell you then you'll probably die. We were lucky enough to leave alive when we found out."
"Dismissed, then." He obviously wouldn't be getting anything from the superhero team. They were too close to Stark.
"Any luck with your search?"
"None so far, my Queen. Whoever does this knows what they're doing, has obviously studied my spells to such a… pursued extent. This is so weird! I can't, like, what even- goodness, it's like finding a piece of hay in a hay stack! There is no way to separate what I know from what everyone else knows because everyone has enough brains to not fuck with what has clearly been labeled Property of the Merchant of Death. Do not touch my stuff!"
"You would think so, Anthony… how is Loki?"
"He's healing well enough. The damage was extensive enough that the only way to properly heal him was to regress him to a safer age and build him up from there. He is rather impressionable, or so I've found, and curious. He's taken to the idea of being a Jotun rather well, if I do say so myself. He's got a while to go before we can consider him well, but he's doing fine so far."
"Good, he deserves better than Asgard, that's for sure. Your mission, should you choose to accept it."
"Who showed you Mission Impossible?"
"I need you to stop the assassination of the Light King Freyr. He's on his way back from Svartaheimr and the demon king Surtr has allied with the ruler of the Dark Elves to take down Asgard and her allies, starting with those they consider the weakest and working their way up. I task you with this, but you may choose a servant to go in your stead."
"If you want something done right, do it yourself." Tony groused.
"Go well, Merchant, and be wary. The deepest evil has yet to be seen."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
The Merchant was gone seconds later, leaving the Queen of Death to puzzle over the piece of the prophecy she'd given him. They would know the outcome when it occurred. For now, all they could do was wait, and hope that something could be done to prevent the larger evil at play. If things added up as she feared… then Merchant's trifled poisons would be the least of their worries.