"You would have us break my mandate of no contact with Earth, why?" asked Odin.
And so Robin explained, calmly and reasonably about how she had begun a school for children with unique powers that were being persecuted, and the attacks meant to harm the children she taught. How she wanted to make the school an Embassy for the Asguardian people to learn about Earth without drawing too much attention to themselves, and how it would improve relations before humans got the idea to try and invade. Not that it would be much of an invasion, but it was the possibility of it that worried her.
And here was her main selling point...allowing her school to become an Embassy would give her an excuse to send Hermes to Asgard to see his grandparents without disrupting the time lines.
Odin asked questions...some which made her slightly uncomfortable, like how these...mutants...could help in a crisis. She didn't want to expose those children to war before they were ready. Fortunately Thor had spoken at length about people like Storm, Jean and Scott who had helped during the battle in New York. All of it was in her favor.
Then she dropped the bombshell about the Purge that she would enact in a few months time, resetting the 'magic clock' as it were. And how she had begun moving people and creatures off world for over a year now on an uninhabited planet.
Odin wanted to see this new world, in order to see if it was worth acknowledging them by Asgard standards.
Luckily there were some werewolves already there helping Hel terraform the place for others.
Odin walked among the current inhabitants, and was impressed. Finally he turned to Robin.
"I see no reason not to grant your request, provided Thor does not learn of it. I do not particularly wish him to pursue a relationship with Jane Foster."
"You think it would bring him heartbreak to watch her grow old and die while he is still in his prime," said Robin knowingly.
"The only reason I allowed Loki to fall in love with you is because of your animal form."
"A phoenix is immortal. I remember you mentioning this after we were wed," said Robin.
Odin had allowed Loki to marry her because she could become a phoenix, meaning she could match his life span.
"As for your request to have your school act as go-between with Midgard...you had best get the permission of the planet first, or a representative," said Odin.
"I plan to speak to Fury when I return," said Robin.
Since S.H.I.E.L.D. was created by the UN, it would be a major step forward.
Robin walked into her school with a light step. She looked outside with relief on her features at the flags that now adorned the outside lawn.
One was the US flag...next to the 'official' flag that Asgard used to have. It was something that Odin had brought out of storage, as it hadn't been used since the war between Asgard and the Dark Elves. She decided it wasn't necessary to tell the children that the flag had once been used as a way to identify Bor's people from his allies during a war.
At least not unless someone asked.
"Good news everyone! We've gotten a bit of special security against the bigots who hate mutants!" she announced with cheer.
"What sort of security?" demanded one of the more abused children.
"Who here knows what an embassy is?" she asked. Several hands were raised.
"Alright, who here has heard of the demi-god Thor?"
Most of the hands were raised.
"Who knows what race Thor belongs to?"
"I know, I know!" said a young girl about eight, "Thor is an Asgardian!"
"Correct! Well done Suzy! Yes, Thor is an Asgardian, as am I through marriage to his brother Loki. Before you all get angry, it wasn't actually Loki doing the invading of New York at the time. He was being controlled through that staff of his."
"How do you know Loki was being controlled?" demanded one of the boys who had been in New York at the time. He had come face to face with a Chitauri and had only been spared by the Black Widow and Hawk-Eye.
Robin sighed, then waved her hand. She wandlessly conjured a screen and projector. She hooked it up to the SHIELD files and showed Loki when he was initially captured.
"Take a good long look at Loki during his capture, specifically his eyes. What color are they?"
"Ice blue," called out a student in the front.
"Now take a look at them after the invasion, before Thor took him back to Asgard. What color are they now? And before you ask, the only thing Loki did to his appearance was change his clothes."
"They're a different shade of green compared to your Sissy," said a little girl.
Robin moved the comparisons side-by-side. It was clear as day that Loki's eye color had changed drastically. Then she brought up a picture of Hawk-Eye from the helicarrier when they assaulted it, and one of him after.
"As you can see, Loki wasn't the only one possessed. Hawk-Eye was as well. While he had some control over himself, the staff he was holding would have made fighting very difficult, and from what I understand he had little choice if he wanted to come back to his sector of space."
That calmed quite a bit of rage down for the children. Then one asked why there was a strange flag out on the lawn.
"Ah, I was hoping one of you would ask. That second flag is the one we will be using since we were given special status as the official Asgard embassy. This is still a school, only now you will be helping the Asgard people who visit to fit in more. Now many of you are probably wondering why the status was changed and what it will mean for us. The purpose of an embassy is to act as a go between for countries, or in this case worlds. We are going to be the starting point for Asgard to get to know our planet, which they call Midgard better. After the mess Thor made when he first arrived and the misunderstandings that could have been prevented had he known how things worked, we have been granted permission from Thor and Loki's father Odin to act as his representative. Now you as students do not need to worry about how this will affect you...this is mostly for the Asgardians who will be learning with you. Now who knows what basic protections are awarded to an embassy. Yes Kiley?"
"An embassy is considered foreign soil, and an attack on one is considered an act of war against the country itself."
"Correct! Now the main reason I approached Odin, and no I am not going to tell you how I got there and back in three days just yet, was so that we could be given the status of an embassy to keep you the students protected from bigots like Reverend Stryker. People like him would be far more wary to attack an embassy than they would be to attack a mere school, no matter how protected it is. I did this mostly to give the bigots reason not to attack. Any questions?"
No one raised their hands. Robin had always done what she believed best for the students after asking their opinion first. In this case it meant that those interested in being warriors would learn from honorable ones like Sif and Thor. She would never force a child to fight like she had been.
The first Asgardian group was lead by Sif, who wanted to understand why Thor liked Jane. Robin had no issues, only she requested that Sif not mention her real identity to Thor just yet. He still hadn't figured out that the Enchantress was his brother's new wife, or that Hermes was Loki's son.
Seeing Sif wrapped around Hermes' finger was pretty funny though.
With their presence, the number of attacks on the school dropped to only once a month, if they were lucky. And with their new status as embassy, Stryker's chances of getting in dropped just as fast. He decided to focus on Xavier's school...too bad for him he did it during the same night Hermes decided to have a sleepover with his friends.
Robin was about to make another cup of black tea when the wards she placed on her son went off. She blinked, then double checked them.
Hermes had been shot at.
Robin's rage was proportional to her calm state. If she found out who had shot at her son, they would pray that Bellatrix Lestrange had gotten to them first. Robin would prove that Black blood bred true, despite her mother's heritage as a muggleborn.
Ironically enough, the last time Robin ran into Lestrange before the war ran down and learned of her vicious nature (as well as the fact Sirius had given her the title Lady Black, meaning he was no longer the head of the Black family) she had actually avoided hitting Robin.
Later Bellatrix ended up her right-hand woman, even if it meant she had to tone down the mudblood insults. For some reason working with Robin seemed to bring her back to sanity, and Narcissa was delighted in having her sister back.
From what Robin could tell, the main reason Bellatrix became insane was over-exposure to the Crucio curse, and she was already in too deep with Voldemort to get out without being killed. That was the only reason she had relocated Bella once she had the castle moved.
Robin donned her S.H.I.E.L.D. outfit and went straight to Xavier's school, only to find it in disarray. She recognized Stryker immediately and knew he was there for something, most likely Cerebro.
Unfortunately for him she knew exactly where it was and teleported inside. It took her little time to fry the control panel and remove several key parts from the device, without which it would be useless. She vanished before Stryker and his people managed to get in.
Too bad, as she missed a rather amusing look on the man's face.
Hermes wasn't as scared as the other children, mostly because he knew how to get out. He wasn't a mutant, and he had several shields around his mind. The only reason they had caught him was because he realized what was going on and wanted to keep his friends safe.
"You little freaks are going to get what's coming to you soon!" sneered a guard. Hermes frowned...his mother hated that word with a passion (or any variant) and disciplined any student using it. The only time she didn't react was when the word was used to describe someone's passion, like the word 'otaku'.
"Momma's going to get you soon. She hates the word freak," said Hermes calmly. The guard sneered. Hermes shrugged, and made a note of which one he was. His mother liked to deal with people like him personally.
And if need be, Aunt Jean and Uncle Scott would help.
(He started calling Jean aunt after he learned that she was his mother's cousin three times removed.)
Robin was furious when she learned from Logan that her son was missing along with over half the students. Because they knew she owned another mutant sanctuary, most of the students who had made it out safely immediately headed towards the magical section of New York for a port key.
There was a free one in case of emergencies at all major magical sections in America that lead straight to Robin's new school she had that arranged by the American Ministry and they had agreed to the terms. Now most of the children who had escaped (with the exception of those with Logan) had made it all the way to Robin's school.
Robin was there to great them, having felt the port key wards go off.
"What happened?" she asked, ushering them inside the grounds. All of the usual guards tensed up and started checking for danger, which reassured the terrified mutants.
"Someone attacked the school! Logan managed to get nearly half of us out," said the lead one, a mutant who was encased in metal all over his body.
"Good job leading them to safety. The Moonsinger clan and the Darkstalker clan will keep you safe tonight. Now, do you know where the Professor and the others are?" asked Robin calmly. Her aura seemed to calm down some of the terrified students.
"Professor Xavier left earlier today, something about finding another mutant to bring in, and Professor Summers went with him. Professor Gray left with Storm to retrieve the mutant who attacked the president, Logan took a smaller group out...he was the last one to leave," said the older mutant. He handed over the girl to a nearby werewolf.
"Where did Summers take them?"
"I don't know, but they were supposed to be back by morning at the latest."
"This is bad. I know Xavier has alarms on his mansion should it ever be attacked, and he should have been here right now with Scott. If Xavier and Summers aren't here, then that means they were detained, probably by the same people who attacked the mansion. Storm and Jean are on their way here, and I can try to find Logan and the others. We need to regroup before we do anything," said Robin.
"What about us?" asked one of the younger children.
"You lot will be staying here with my group. No one will attack you here, and I will not force children to fight unless there is no other options available."
That seemed to relieve the children. Xavier's school always involved combat training and Danger Room sessions were mandatory if you wanted to graduate, which was something most of them weren't comfortable with at all.
When they were told that the school doubled as an embassy to Asgard, they nearly sobbed with relief. Sif in particular seemed angry over the attack on the children, something they took with relief as she would definitely react badly to a repeat.
It took Robin an hour to find Logan, mostly through a communication device he had active. It had taken Storm and Jean thirty minutes to land at her school, and another five to hide the jet.
Logan was drinking a beer, glad that Robin hadn't changed a bit. Though the fire whiskey was something he hadn't tried before, at least in recent memory. He needed a drink after the hectic night he just had.
"Did you see where Hermes went?" asked Robin seriously.
"Ran into the runt during the initial shock. Said he would stick with his friends to insure that they survived long enough for us to find them," said Logan.
Hermes had been the one to alert them to the break in, and had earned Logan's respect by choosing to protect his friends rather than run.
Robin shook her head in amusement.
"Just like his mother..." she muttered.
"Eh?"
"I would have done the same thing in his position at that age. I had a bit of a 'saving people thing' as an ex-friend once called it, though the European magicals destroyed that rather thoroughly later."
Logan snorted at that understatement. He was one of the few who knew the full extent of the betrayal, as they had just clicked. He was very glad that he was one of the rare people Robin called friend and meant it when she said it. After what happened she was very, very choosy about who she trusted and it showed.
"In the meantime I am going to find Eric and Mystique. They would be our best bet to find that bastard Stryker...and he will be held accountable for trying to harm my son."
"I can't wait to watch that..." snorted Logan, downing another beer.