Loki found himself unchained, in a room with two comfortable chairs before a fire, a table between them. The carpet was white and soft beneath his bare feet, the walls white but hung with pale green hangings. He had no memory of how he went from the dungeons in the lower recesses of Odin's palace to this place.
"Am I dreaming?" he asked no one in particular.
Yet there was someone else with him, who did not so much appear as unaccountably make himself known, as if it had been Loki's lack of observation that kept him from realizing his host had been there all along. He was in the shape of a tall, slim man, with unruly white hair, his robes and boots white, an emerald around his neck and his eyes like a night of stars. His voice had an odd echoing quality to it. "In a sense, though I thought it prudent to bring your body here as well. Will you sit?"
"What happens if I do not?"
"Then you will remain standing. I will sit, though, if that does not cause you offense." So the man did, with a sort of fluid decorum, the grace and propriety of a well-mannered brook.
Weighing his options, Loki chose to sit across from him.
"You are not asking the questions that have come to your mind."
"As you are the one who have chosen to bring me here, you are the one who has specific things you wish me to know."
His host seemed to take this as logical, giving him a slight nod. "I know you, Loki. You and I have not met in person, but you have come to my realm before, and will do so many more times. I am Dream."
"Is that a name or an identity?"
"I am Dream. I am called other things but this is what I am. Is there anything you wish to eat or drink?"
"Not right now. Besides, I have heard tell that in some worlds to accept refreshment is a tacit bargain to never leave."
With utmost seriousness, Dream said, "No one must stay anywhere forever. Not only do they come to me throughout their lives, but even after my sister takes them there are always choices if one only allows oneself to see them."
Loki disliked being baited towards turning a conversation towards specific channels, but until he knew what the game it was hard to choose another course. "Your sister?"
"My elder sister, Death. She recently alerted me towards the situation I summoned you to discuss with me."
"And by 'summoned' you mean 'kidnapped'."
Dream raised an eyebrow. "You did not give me the impression of great appreciation for your former surroundings, prince of Jotunheim. I will return you there after you have assisted me if you like. Depending on certain other factors I may also be able to send you somewhere else."
Ah. During his time serving Loki, the Hawkeye had explained to him an idiom involving sticks and carrots. That was the carrot. Soon the stick would make itself known. "What is it you desire from me?"
"Desire has nothing to do with it." This was more vehement than strictly necessary, Loki thought. But Dream did not elaborate, instead going on to say, "I believe you are aware that Asgardian interference in bygone Midgardian affairs resulted in a distorted version of Asgard being worshipped as a realm of gods."
"I am."
"What you perhaps have not known is that if enough dreamers believe the same thing, it causes creations in my kingdom to shape themselves beyond what I myself intend, though I am able to steer the course. This is true for the creation of gods - true gods, sustained not by food and drink and air but by the belief of those who called them forth into existence. Which is how you, Loki, who may style himself a god but is in fact a creature of flesh that has a limited span of life, accountable to my sister one day, are not the only Loki in Creation."
Loki had no interest in looking or sounding a fool, so he kept his face impassive. "So the other Lokis, being product of dreams, are your responsibility."
"There is only one other, to my knowledge, but this too causes problems. It will be simpler to explain this to both of you at once. Come with me, and be prepared for an unpleasant sight."
Then the walls dissolved around them.
...
Meanwhile, in the waking world, the core members of the Avengers were gathered around Loki's daughter and trying not to either yawn or gape excessively. Since Hel was clearly enjoying her oatmeal and none of them wanted to potentially upset her, they were all in the kitchen. Bruce was anxious. Clint was grim. Natasha displayed no emotion whatsoever, as was her default state with an unknown variable.
"You were saying that you have met Death, niece," Thor prompted, filling up a glass of water for her.
Tony downed a third espresso like it was a shot of liquor.
"She was actually a pleasant and cheerful individual," Hel replied. "She said she was glad I had grown so tall, as when she gave me my first breath of life she had thought I might not survive long." She resumed eating in the very deliberate manner she had to use to keep from food spilling out the bad half of her face.
"What did you discuss with her?"
"She came to say there seems to be more than one set of our family, and that she was going to ask her brother if he knew about this but she wanted to check with me first. I wasn't entirely clear on her meaning but she apologized and said she or someone else would explain better when more was known, and that she herself had to go take care of a volcanic eruption on some planet I had not heard of."
An unfamiliar voice in the hallway commented dryly, "I've met her a few times. She's like that, even when giving the 'if you hurt my little brother you'll regret it' speech.'"
It went to show a lot about their different personalities that Steve's reaction was, "Who are you?", Bruce's reaction was "How did you get in here?", Clint's reaction was to reflexively grasp for a bow and curse when he realized he had none, Natasha threw a knife without hesitation (and had a knife to throw in the first place), Thor was shielding Hel with his body, and Tony asked, "You got the concerned-loved-one speech from DEATH?"
The intruder was utterly unconcerned about the small dagger embedded in his torso, and except for the new hole in it his plain white t-shirt was pristine. He wore faded blue jeans, white sneakers, and sunglasses so dark as to make one wonder how he could see anything. Though his body and face seemed young his hair was pure white. "Again, she was pretty nice about it, all things considered. It's not like her brother can't take care of himself. For the most part. Though you shouldn't tell him I said that; he does sometimes lecture me about 'taking liberties'. Would you all be willing to emerge into the larger foyer? It's a bit cramped where you are."
"If you hand my knife back," Natasha said, her voice steady.
"Right. Here." He pulled it out of himself and held it out, his hand around the blade and the hilt facing towards his audience. "I promise I won't bite. I don't do that sort of thing anymore. Oh, Thor Odinson, it would perhaps be a good idea for you to send Hel home right now. It will all make sense eventually, or at least as much sense as it's going to make."
Steve turned to Thor, gently authoritative even in pajamas. "We can deal with this, Thor."
It took a while for everything to get settled so that the stranger - the stranger who was apparently dating Death's little brother (at this point, hey why not?) - could give his speech. But eventually they were in the living room of that particular floor, seated but wary.
"Okay. Hello, Avengers. I am the Corinthian. I know it's a weird name. My master is simultaneously the King of Dreams and also the personification of Dreams himself. I am not interested in hearing your entirely unoriginal wisecracks about this. He sent me because he wants to confer about a problem involving multiple Lokis apparently existing, the one you know and the one he knows. He says it's difficult creating a shared dream without the foreknowledge and consent of all the dreamers involved, so he let me come to the waking world to fetch you. Not that we're going to try to do it against your wills. I'm not good at verbal persuasion but of his most trusted employees I am both the most human-shaped and am better at fitting in among mortals and not being alarming by accident, which isn't the best reflection on us as a whole now that I think about it. You should come with me, though. It'll be safe if you do as he says."
"You're saying that you're the least disconcerting person of all the people that could have been sent?" Bruce asked.
The Corinthian sighed. "I suggested Cain, who is at least physically normal in appearance, but he's really belligerent and he doesn't like leaving the Dreaming ever since he had to go do diplomacy with Lucifer. And Abel's terrified of everything ever."
Steve sat up a little straighter. "You mean the Cain and Abel? As in Genesis?"
"For a given interpretation. Eve lives there too. But this is all beside the point."
Bruce took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. "What happens if we agree to you?"
"Then you will follow me to a cavern beneath the world where the version of Loki you haven't met before is suffering a painful and lengthy imprisonment, and the version of Loki that you have met is no doubt having a rather surreal day."
Tony spoke up. "Why are you wearing those sunglasses? I've seen movies; I know that you probably have horrifying eyes or something. Or empty sockets."
"Not a bad guess, but both wrong."
"I want to see."
"You really don't."
"We don't even know what you are. So supposedly the King of Dreams is your boss, but what are you?"
"A reincarnation of a nightmare that went rogue and became a serial killer, reborn with a imperative of complete devotion and a very, very strong sense of a lot of reasons why I shouldn't try something again. I mostly haunt people's dreams. I don't strictly get paid but on the other hand I wouldn't exist otherwise so I don't angst about it. Happy?"
"I want to see."
Natasha said quietly, "Watch yourself, Stark."
"I'm not going unless we know what you're hiding."
"Fine." The Corinthian took off his sunglasses.
One of his other mouths said, in a screechy little voice, "Curiosity. I told him this would happen." Then the other other mouth said, "If you don't help the Dreamlord I might end up being the least scary thing you ever see as a result of your actions."