Hel knew better than to put off carrying out an order her boss had given her – it had been ingrained in each of the gods of death that when The Boss told you to do something, you got that shit done, and you got it done now. So when she finally set out to do so several hours later, she told herself that she had not been delaying what was sure to be an embarrassing and painfully awkward conversation – no, she had merely been setting things in order so that things would not go to hell while she was addressing the… situation with Thanos.

Yeah, even she did not believe it, but the important thing would be convincing her boss that it was true. Given who her father was, she had some faith that she could do it – she just needed to make herself (mostly) believe it as well, before she told The Boss why she had not immediately set out to fix the Thanos problem. If she didn't believe it, at least a little bit, then neither would Harry Potter.

When she could not come up with any other feasible task that would sufficiently serve the purpose of delaying the inevitable, the death goddess grimaced and summoned a portal, taking a brief moment to make sure she looked suitably regal and Deathly, before she stepped through space-time and came before the man-creature intent on obliterating the universe in her name.

To his credit, Thanos did not devolve into some sort of stuttering, drooling mess when confronted with the object of his affections, as she had known some who worshipped her to do. Instead, the Mad Titan blinked, once, twice, in surprise, before opening his mouth to address her.

"My Lady. I was not expecting you. Have you come to congratulate me on my work in your honor?"

Ugh. See, that was why she did not like him. Narcissistic, arrogant ass. She was already scowling when she came through the portal, and yet he did not take it for the hint it was. Really, it just irritated her more.

"Cut the crap, Thanos," she said, wanting to get this whole painful mess over with as quickly as possible now that she was here. "I don't give a flying fuck about your 'work'." The Titan looked taken aback, but Hel continued as if she did not see the surprise and hurt on his face. "You've managed to piss off my boss and he told me to fix it. So here I am, 'fixing' it."

Hel was feeling surprisingly resentful, angry almost, now that she was forced to deal with this creature and his ridiculous infatuation with her – she had given him no reason to think that there was even a remote possibility of her returning his affections, absolutely nothing to make him believe that destroying all life was the way to go about getting her attention. She had barely ever said a word to the guy, for crying out loud!

"My Lady, I do not understand–" she cut him off with an irritated laugh that had him paling. Nothing was quite as frightening in any dimension as an angry representative of Death laughing. If The Boss had done it, Hel had no doubt that Thanos would have pissed himself in fear.

"Then let me spell it out for you – I am not interested in you. This whole plot to gain my affection is fucking ridiculous." Hel's previously crossed arms waved about, indicating in an abstract manner the destruction of the universe Thanos had caused. "I never asked you to kill people for me – I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself when I want it done. In fact, I am honestly fucking clueless as to how you came to the erroneous conclusion that this was a good way to make me like you. What the fuck were you thinking?"

It was probably the thought of the paperwork that awaited her in the morning that had her so overwhelmingly irate. As far as the perks of being a death god instead of Death itself went, usually not having to do paperwork ranked pretty high up there (right next to the chair, because let's face it, the chair was pretty much the best part). The fact that in just a few short hours, she would likely be up to her eyeballs in the stuff – all because of Thanos – was seriously ticking her off.

"I–" Thanos started, but Hel, just like The Boss had done earlier to her, ran right over his attempted reply.

"I don't care. All I want from you, you phenomenal jackass, is to be left alone. Actually, I would be deliriously happy if you never killed again. Even better, I would jump for joy if you switched your religion and then dropped dead so that you would be someone else's problem!" By all that was dead and gone in the worlds, she did not want to deal with that paperwork! This was going to be worse than Anubis's punishment had been, far worse. Everyone on the Divine Council would agree with her, she was sure (just as most of them would probably agree that she deserved it, the fickle bastards…)

When she spared an ounce of thought for Thanos again, he was just staring at her, looking rather… stunned. Obviously, he did not know what to do with a pissed off Hel, any more Hell really knew what to do with herself. Sighing irritably, the death goddess held out her hand.

"Give me the Infinity Stones and the Gauntlet," she demanded, only slightly mollified by the meekness with which the Mad Titan handed them over. Why he went after the stones after The Boss had taken the Space stone all those years ago, she could not fathom (unless he somehow thought he would be able to get into Death's Domain and steal it, in which case he was even crazier than she had first thought), but she might as well take the damn things, just so he could not cause any more trouble with them. Maybe Harry would let her off with a lighter sentence for taking the initiative…

In the spirit of that line of thinking, another idea came to her, making her grin rather wickedly, an expression that in turn made Thanos flinch. "Now, just to make sure you don't do anything stupid after this… There are some Midgardians I'd like to visit. You know, to make a gesture of good will." Thanos was not going to like what she had in mind, that much was obvious, but Hel was quite pleased with her idea (not to mention she did not give a shit what Thanos liked or did not like).

It was happening again. There they all were, strategizing a plan of attack (rather than arguing like a bunch of children like last time), when a weird buzz filled the room, halting conversation as every single one of them turned to look at the source – a portal forming at the back of the room.

Thor could only be thankful that this portal was not streaked with silver lightning and black shadows, as the last had been – he had absolutely no desire to ever meet with the entity most knew as Death ever, ever, again.

He heaved a sigh of relief, stating, "It's not him," for the benefit of his companions, who visibly relaxed, only to tense again as Natasha asked the obvious question.

"If it's not him, then who is it?"

Thor did not get a chance to answer – though the portal did seem rather familiar, now that he thought about it, he was sure he had seen it before – because a millisecond afterward, a shadow appeared in the portal, followed by another, bigger shadow, and the mix of humans and super-humans (along with the aliens) all took ready stances, prepared for a fight.

Only to be completely flabbergasted as a very young looking woman – despite the fact that half of her body looked like it was dead and skeletal; literally half, like someone had folded her right down the middle and killed the right side of her while leaving the left perfectly healthy – stepped into the room, smiling with such cheer that you had to wonder whose life she was ruining to be so happy, followed by… Thanos, the Mad Titan. The creature responsible for so much death and destruction across the universe – the being that they were all about to go to defeat. He looked absolutely miserable.

(Thor wasn't sure what surprised him more – the fact that his niece had decided to pay them a visit, or that she had brought along their enemy. Or the fact that no one had taken advantage and fired at Thanos – the assassins were showing real restraint there, he thought. They weren't the kind to pass up opportunities like this.)

"Who invited Skeletor and the mad man wrecking half the universe?" Tony (of course it was Tony) asked.

As anyone who worked with the man for longer than five minutes knew to do, Thor ignored him, addressing his niece (and hopefully distracting her from the Man of Iron's less-than-flattering misnomer, for which the death goddess was looking at the mortal with a rather calculating expression, her initial smile gone).

"Hela? What are you doing here?"

From the way her eyes reluctantly moved to him, Thor got the feeling Tony was in for something unpleasant, after the goddess of Hel finished with whatever had brought her here. Still, at least his friend would have a brief reprieve (and perhaps a chance to apologize), if the smile that once again flashed on half of Hel's face was anything to go by. (Tony's muttered, "Blondie knows the half-dead girl. Of course he does," was equally ignored.)

"Oh, nothing much," Hel said blithely before turning and 'presenting' the Titan behind her. "Thanos here just has something to say. Isn't that right, Thanos?"

The alien being grimaced, an expression that only made Hel's grin widen, before speaking. Thor knew he wasn't the only one confused, and the words of the Mad Titan did not help to alleviate that confusion.

"I… apologize for the… trouble I have caused all of you. I cannot undo what I have done, but I would like to offer… my services," Thor could already hear the comments Tony would make about the 'constipated' look on Thanos's face, "to help repair the damage resultant of my schemes." It seemed that would be all, until Hel elbowed the creature in the thigh, which was as high as she could reach, which caused him to grimace, adding, "I would also like to assure you that I will never again attempt to destroy the universe or… kill anyone intentionally again."

With that, the giant seemed to be done, his face truly appearing 'constipated' now, and Hel was positively beaming at all of them. There was a phrase for the silence in the room, which he was sure had something to do with a writing utensil dropping, but Thor could not quite recall it in his shock. This was… even stranger than when Death had shown up and taken the Tesseract.

"Thank you, Thanos," the death goddess said cheerfully, turning to the Mad Titan and making shooing motions with her hands. "You can go back to your deep space hidey-hole again – that will be all."

Clapping her hands, Hel turned from him back to the completely silent team, smiling almost benevolently at them all. "Since I'm sure you didn't believe a word of all of that, I will put your minds at ease. I have the Infinity Stones," briefly, the five glowing singularities appeared behind Hel before disappearing again, "and tomorrow morning they will be safely tucked away in The Boss's possession." There was a flicker of something that looked like a grimace across her face before the Queen of Hel grinned again.

"Now, if you'll excuse me… There's a Titan I need to go make miserable for a few more hours." Another grimace as she turned away, and Thor was sure he was the only one with sharp enough hearing to catch her muttered, "Before Harry makes me miserable."

Or maybe he wasn't the only one, because a moment after Hel vanished back into her portal, Steve asked the room at large, "Who's Harry?" at the same time Tony wondered, "Did that just happen again, or are we all involved in some kind of mass hallucination?"

It had taken almost twenty-four hours to get his chair clean of paperwork again – during which, the steady stream of documents coming into his office had trickled almost to a stop, and he actually seemed to be making progress in catching up. If it had not been Hel's fault in the first place, Harry just might have been grateful to her for putting a stop to it.

But since it was her fault…

When she arrived at 9AM on the dot, he felt a positively vindictive sort of glee at the dread on her face as she looked around the stacks, piles, and veritable mountains of scrolls, folders, packets and novellas. The death goddess most certainly deserved to help him clean up this mess.

"Sir?" she called, unable to see him through the maze, craning her neck in an attempt to catch a glimpse of him.

Harry stood and navigated the paperwork, not bothering to suppress his smile as he greeted his subordinate – it was not a pleasant expression, and he could already see how she was trying not to grimace at the sight of it. Honestly, it just made it ten times better.

"Good morning, Hel!" he said, the cheery tone of his voice causing her to wince – a happy Harry surrounded by this much paperwork did not mean good things for the person his cheer was directed at. "So glad to see you. Here you go." Without any more warning, he grabbed her hand and slapped a scroll into her palm, making sure her fingers curled around it before letting go.

"Those are your instructions. If you have any questions, just ask the minions. I'll see you in seventy-two hours!" With a jaunty wave, the Master of Death grabbed his coat and disappeared, savoring the abject misery on Hel's face as he did so – three days of uninterrupted paperwork was no more than she deserved.

A/N: And that's all she wrote, folks! Or at least, all I'm writing for this particular MoD!Harry is Not Amused fic. (As stated previously, check out The Plot Bunny Whisperer's fics, Deus Ex Machina and Deus Initium; they are AWESOME, and the former is the inspiration for this lovely piece of nonsense that you had just finished reading, the latter being something new and equally wonderful.)

Reviews make me happy, so THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed, and THANK YOU to everyone who will. I try to say thanks via PM, but if I haven't/didn't/don't, this is the response. (Critiques are always welcome - I like knowing if I did not pull something off the way I hoped I did.)

Follows and faves also make me happy (though not as happy as reviews *shameless non-hinting*), so I want to thank everyone who has followed and favorited. It's great to know when people enjoy what I've written.