Tony paused as he saw his uninvited guests, Hope silently waved to him before doing some strange mime that Tony took to take she had no part in what happened to Jarvis—she had been fascinated by Jarvis and delighted in hearing another British accent—before he focused his gaze on the tall dark man in front of his windows—perhaps he shouldn't have laughed when that fortune-teller that Pepper hired for some fun said there was a tall and dark stranger in his future.

"'I am Ironman'," The man mocked as he turned to face him. "Really?"

"I told you he would ignore the script," Hope muttered loud enough for them to hear making Tony smirk though the other man ignored her.

"Do you think you're the only superhero in this world?" he asked.

"Who are you?" Tony cut in.

"I'm Nick Fury," he introduced himself. "I run SHIELD."

"Ah, the head asshole," Tony commented making Hope smirk. "What can I help you with?"

"It's what I can help you with," Fury countered.

And that was the official start of the Avengers though Fury would never admit it. Stark, Natasha, Clint and I were the first to be considered as Avengers with Bruce Banner hopefully joining the ranks later because Steve Rogers was still considered dead and Thor had yet to crash-land on earth and level a small town in New Mexico.

I was always around when Stark had to do training, sometimes even sparring with the man as well, and I often was over his place as he kept upgrading my arm and we chatted about idle things as he either designed a new suit or a new arm for me.

Slowly Stark became Tony as he became a friend. Survivors are always drawn together, huh?

I noticed his decline in health, but we didn't talk about it. I knew he was sick, seriously sick, and he knew I was aware that there was something wrong with him. I acted like I always did—I knew first-hand how irritating pity and sympathy was to the ill—and I like to think he was grateful for that though I did attempt to offer my blood to help him with its healing effects if he could get rid of the almost toxic nature of it—which he was able to do and regular shots of my treated-blood were coupled with changing his reactor core as his blood poisoning became worse and he got ever closer to death.

Despite knowing how it would all turn out, I didn't like seeing the slow decline to him as he had become my friend. It was like watching Dad again, as the cancer eat at him and he became paler and thinner with too cold hands with surprising strength—I would always remember the last time he ever held my hand, fingers like ice though strong like iron, as he drifted in and out of pained unconsciousness and I remember that I promised I would see him again, I never did as he died a week later.

I didn't want to see Tony die though I logically knew he wouldn't if things went as they should. But I knew my presence had screwed with the X-men Timeline, how did I know I wasn't screwing up the Avengers' timeline too?

"Why do you guys always wear black?" Hope slid on her dark aviator shades before shedding her jacket, the heat getting to her slowly.

"You really going to ask that question?" Clint shot a look Hope's darkly coloured outfit—the lightest colour he had ever seen the younger woman wear was white.

"It matches my soul," she smirked at him as they idly watched other agents' block of the strange hammer and set-up something structure around it.

Clint just snorted in reply.

"Sure it does,"

"It does," she insisted with a grin. "Anyway has Coulson figured out what's up with the big-ass hammer?"

"Nope," Clint replied as he leaned back against the car—they were the muscle and was just there to keep the locals away really so didn't really have to go down there with everyone else.

Something that suited them as neither wouldn't do anything under the sun as it slowly attempted to bake them—according to Hope at least.

Many of the agents were uneasy with my presence with them—if I actually gave a fuck about them, and instead of just Natasha, Clint and Phil out of the whole of SHIELD, I may have felt hurt about how they still didn't trust me, than again they still didn't trust Natasha—so I was able to slip out and explore the little town to my hearts-content and I was able to see the sight of Jane Foster hitting the Mighty Thor with her car again.

It was brilliant.

"Oh my god," Hope gasped out through laughter. "You actually hit him twice?"

"Instead of laughing at us, can you help us put him the car?" Darcy glared at her as she huffed with Hope still grinning as she helped Erik pick up the God-turn-Mortal into the car.

"Can I totally come with you guys?" she pinned them bright eyes. "I want front row seats for this show."

"No," Erik Selvig was a total kill-joy.

"If you don't let me come, I'll call the police to say you've run-over an escaped patient from the hospital, who is thought to have mental-problems, before kidnapping said man," Hope countered with a smile making Erik glare.

"I like her," Darcy whispered to Jane who frowned at her intern before turning to Hope.

"Get in," she decided firmly to Erik's ire.

With a total smug grin, Hope hopped in the back after pushing Thor over and began to talk to Darcy about everything that had happened so far as Erik, almost moodily, got into the passengers-seat and Jane into the driver's seat before they pulled away from the hospital.

Hope was not missing a moment of this show.

Really I should have thought it through. I was going with the little group with an alien/god confined to a mortal shell and I really should have known if anyone figured out that I wasn't an innocent bystander interested in the latest gossip and such, it would the great warrior Thor.

"I'm impressed," Thor stared at her with blue eyes making Hope glance up from her DS and the three scientists watch them. "To meet such a strong female warrior."

Hope could almost hear Erik's teeth grinding together as another reason for distrusting her was laid out for all to see, but she simply raised her eyebrows at the broad man.

"What makes you think I'm a warrior?" she was honestly curious as she was just sat on one of their chairs while playing her DS while the others had a hissed argument.

"You are built like a warrior"—"are you calling me broad and bulky?" she asked and was ignored—"and have a tensed ease around you that marks you as a warrior. Plus I can feel the kinship between us fellow warriors."

She snorted as she absently saved her game and flipped the screen closed.

"I'm no warrior," she glanced up when it seemed like he was about to interrupt and glared at him which made him look almost amused. "Warriors fight with honour and other such crap and always fight for a cause or people. I'm a survivor and I fight for no one but myself."

"You are a warrior," he insisted stubbornly. "And you have honour."

"And you are a total moron when it comes to humans," she countered and almost cursed out loud as his blue eyes sharpened.

Gods, why did people often write him as an idiot in fan fiction? He had to be a couple of centuries old at the very least and was a fucking warrior, and prince, of Asgard which was still very much stuck in the Viking mind-set—that didn't mean he was stupid though.

He may have been mostly ignorant of how things worked on Earth, completely vexed that he wasn't being given the respect he was used too, completely annoyed that he's words were being disregarded by the people who found him and took him to a place where he was assaulted in his mind, but he was still a cunning warrior—he had nothing on his brother though as he was too honest and forthright—and had caught on that she knew he wasn't from here, he knew she was aware of who he was and what he was and he was curious in how she knew that.

Part of her expected him to call her out on her secret knowledge but he didn't, he demanded food instead.

I purposely took the seat next to Thor and stopped him from smashing his mug on the floor, glowering at him when he looked at me and told him firmly to use his words and not his actions.

Darcy thought it was amusing that I was basically baby-sitting the 'crazy guy' while Jane was more focused on grilling Thor on everything that had happened and the sudden aurora in the sky and where he came from—he was too busy eating to really answer—and only Erik was still giving me the suspicious looks as he quickly realised that I knew Thor, or at least of him and how he would react, and that made him trust me less.

When we found SHIELD looting Jane's stuff made Jane flip while Erik attempted to stop her doing something stupid as he recognised SHIELD. Thor watched with a frown and apart from the few glances being sent towards me, the agents made no mention that I was one of them.

"You're like me aren't you?" Thor asked after Jane had drifted off to sleep. "You're not from this world."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement that he knew was true.

"No, I'm not," she admitted softly as she wrapped herself up with a soft blanket because it was cold without the sun. "I didn't think it was that obvious though."

"I told you," he smiled at her. "We share a kinship."

She snorted at that.

"You at least will be able to go home," she pointed out. "I'll never be able to leave this world and I will die here."

"I am not allowed to leave," he frowned as he admitted that. "My mother has refused to remove the banishment as she grieves for my father."

"That's bull," she rested her head against the back of the fold up chair as Thor looked at her in surprise. "No mother would keep their child banished, especially if their husband had died. They would want their family around them so they could grieve together. You'll go home, I know you will."

"You are very wise than," he smiled at her making her chuckle as she closed her eyes.

"I'm just using common-sense," she told him.

"What was your mother like?" Thor asked after a moment of silence.

"Strong," she said. "Though she never understood why we called her strong. She was fiery and had a temper on her, but she was caring and patient. Stubborn as anything out there and smart too. She laughed and smiled a lot and always laughed when I did something stupid or childish—I mostly did those things so she would laugh."

"You miss her."

"Yes."

"Do you think about her a lot?"

"Not as much as I used too. I've become a killer since I've come here and I know I have disappointed her."

"No mother would be disappointed that her child had learnt to survive, she would just be sad of the length her child had to go to so she could survive the harshness of the world."

"What's your Mum like?"

They spent most of the night talking about their mothers and their childhoods before they finally drifted off to sleep.

Thor could very well adapt to life on Earth as long as he was with Jane—it was so painfully obvious how besotted they already were—and despite being confined to a 'mortal' form he would be a great man.

Unfortunately he had duties and his friends had come, the Destroyer close on their heels.

"Give me a sword or a knife," Hope demanded as she joined the Warriors Three and Sif in the line of defence.

"What do you think you can do, little mortal?" Fandral asked though he easily handed over one of his blades under Hogun's and Sif's disapproving gazes.

Hope smirked as she tested the blade and got used to its feel.

"I'm not exactly mortal anymore," she told him as she slid into a ready stance.

"Where did you found this woman Thor?" Fandral called back to his friend with a flirty grin directed to Hope. "If I had known about you—"

"Believe me, you don't want to finish that sentence," she flashed Fandral a smile with too much teeth being barred to be consider friendly making Sif nod at her in approval and Hogun almost smiled while Volstagg laughed.

"And actually, I was the one that found Thor," Hope told him as the Destroyer came to a stop across from them.

"Fuck," she breathed out as charred flesh mended and healed a lot slower than normal and she could hear Darcy scream in horror as she pushed herself up on her feet—she was so glad that she had stashed her bag, which held her DS, somewhere safe so it hadn't been melted or broke during the fight—and snarled at the alien robot—she could almost feel Loki's surprise through his connection to the Destroyer.

The lower part of her jaw had been burnt badly—it had only been hit by part of its ray as the rest had been focused on her torso—and she could tell some of her metal jaw was visible as skin mend and she was so happy that she had decided to wear a chain-metal top under her clothes so she wouldn't be exposing herself to the world like she had to when she fought at SI with the Iron Monger.

"Now I'm pissed off," she stated in a would-be calm voice and pushed herself from the balls of her feet towards the metal beast.

She was a Super-Soldier, she was damn near Immortal, she had been Wolverine's prize-student—one of his fuckin' kids—and she wasn't going to be beaten by a robot controlled by Loki.

She let out a yell of defiance—how often had she laughed at those that yelled during their fights for seemingly no reason when she had watched movies?—and she attempted to tackle it, blade red hold in her hand as she stabbed and sliced at it.

She was thrown back with force and landed on her back hard enough to make it snap.

"Oh shit," she spoke as the Destroyer loomed over her and fired from were its face should be.

"HOPE!" Thor roared as he watched the fire consume his friend and melt the flesh from her metal bones. "LOKI! STOP!"

The onslaught was finished and Thor almost recoiled from the sight of Hope though he managed not to as he heard both Darcy and Jane retch.

Her eyes had melted, its gooeyness seeped down her metal cheek that had some flesh stubbornly clinging to it, and her hair was nothing but ash in the air. Her chain-mail vest had almost completely melted and become one with her rip cage. She should be dead, anyone else would have already been dead, yet he could see her fingers twitching—blackened fingers slowly returning to their normal pale hue—and knew she still lived and breathed.

She should be on her way to Hela's realm or Valhalla and yet she was here, alive, and Thor knew that she would continue to fight despite the fact that she couldn't win and he knew he had to act, give her time to recover and not make her hasten to her feet to lend him aid.

"Please!" he begged his brother as he began to walk forward with his arms spread wide.

Fighting a robot with a fiery energy-beam for a weapon with just a single blade? Yeah, epically bad idea as he had actually melted my eyes—I was fuckin' blind—and melted the flesh of quite a lot of my body—being burned was the worse pain in the world and if my vocal-cords were functioning that I would show how much it hurt by screaming till I was coughing up blood from a torn throat.

Coulson had to use all his training not to retch as he stood over Hope—she was healing, slowly but surely, but seeing her without eyes or a real face was horrifying—and wasn't surprised that some of the younger agents actually did retch and let their bile splatter the ground.

Clint didn't even flinch as he crouched down next to his friend and whistled as he took all the damaged that she had survived through. Clint and Natasha had both seen some of the most gruesome sights and almost nothing made them flinch anymore.

"Fuck, what the hell was you thinking?" Clint summed up exactly what Coulson was thinking in a very blunt way.

Hope flipped him the bird as slowly her vest came unstuck from her rib-cage, her teeth gritted against each other as a way to vocalise her pain.

"Tasha is so going to give you hell for this," he informed her as he slowly reached out to pick her up.

"Hope," Phil kept his voice bland with a touch of sternness to it. "You are so writing up this fuckery for Fury to read."

She flashed him a thumbs down to sum up her feelings on that order before making grabby hands which made Coulson sigh.

He had to go track down her bag with her DS or she would be impossible to deal with even if they replaced it as she would have to start all over again and whine about that to hell.

"You'll get it when you can see again," he told her before ordering one of the agents to find her bag.

If she actually still had a proper face, Phil was certain that she would be pouting.