The ship was large, orange and was just barely landing when Rose and Loki made it to the roof. The bottom of the ship opened, smoke dramatically poured out. Rose nearly groaned, this seemed more and more fake as it went along. A man stepped out, a red leather jacket billowing out behind him, a silver mask on his face, the tech was simply amazing for this time frame, Rose had to admit. Jane and Darcy ran up the stairs, the door that led to the roof slammed behind them.
"Holy shit. This is so cool." Darcy said.
Rose darted forwards, taking out her sonic and brushing Loki's arms off her. This felt too fake, almost staged, perhaps an alien had gotten access to Netflix and watched too many corny movies about invasions... Rose scanned the man, who was breathing quite heavily, reminding her of Darth Vader. She nearly expected him to say, "I come in peace." She scanned him, and he stood taller, prouder.
"This is fake. He's human." Rose annouced. She then frowned, something else popped up on the scan too, something Rose didn't think existed in this universe. "Who's your parents? You're not all human."
The man made a hmph noise before pressing a button on the side of his mask, it folded together, in a way that made Rose want to suck in a breath at how beautiful this tech was, she heard someone behind her do just that. It made the man grin, taking a bow. Before something appeared behind him, a figure much smaller, and this one was laughing quite hard. From what she could make out with the fog blocking her view, it seemed like a raccoon?
"Not even two minutes and somebody already called bullshit, Quill. I told you that stupid fog machine was one thousand credits too much." He kinda sounded American. Rose had never run across a species like this before, she had a feeling, the walking, talking raccoon in clothes was created in a lab, probably one-of-a-kind.
The man, Quill, groaned. "You were supposed to call me Star Lord."
"So more things can laugh at how stupid that name is?"
"Shut up, Rocket!"
Stark laughed, which was quickly silenced by Steve elbowing him in the ribs. Poor Clint must have been having a hard time with this, the smoke was obscuring everyone's mouth and making Rose's eyes burn. Another two figures emerged from the deck, a green woman, skinny and muscular, and then something that looked a lot like a tree, Flora Colossus. She remembered visiting that planet when on the honeymoon with her Doctor, they had listened to the song that had rung out across the planet's surface, a rare occurrence that had only happened once in a billion years, and her Doctor had taken her to see the last one. The planet had died after that, no one new why. Rose hadn't realized that there was a survivor.
"Groot," Rose said, extremely happy that she got to meet him again.
Groot bowed his head, smiling at her, slightly smaller than when Rose had seen him before. "I am Groot." It is a pleasure to see you, Ms Tyler. Rose was more than a little ecstatic that the Tardis Translator thing was still working.
"And you." Rose was grinning, and ignoring the shocked look of Rocket. Quill nudged Rocket with his foot, causing him to jump. Rose turned back to the others. Loki looked like a trapped animal, fear in his eyes as he tried to inch his way backwards.
"Loki, I had not expected you to be on Terra." The only woman on the team spoke up, the one who had been standing next to Groot. Rose stepped backwards, trying to block Loki from her. Something about the woman worried her. She stepped towards Loki and then froze. Rose spun around, Loki had vanished. Finally, after staring at where he had stood she could see a faint outline of him. He raised a finger to his lips, his eyes flicking back and forth, he moved forwards wrapping his arms around Rose. She was pretty sure she disappeared too by the look on everyone's faces.
"I no longer work for Thanos. He is after me as well. I had a device monitoring all the chips Thanos had inserted, yours stopped working suddenly and led us to it's last known location. You were lucky I had it and not him. I believe Rocket managed to stop the signal before it went any farther. We were on our way to Pluto for their leather sale and decided to stop by."
"Pluto sells leather?" Jane asked, her eyes were lit up, despite the growing tension. Thor rested a hand on her back, trying to move her behind him, she of course had none of that. Jane grabbed Darcy and moved closer to the possible aliens. Rose craned her neck forwards, trying to peak inside the ship. She could only see shelves, not very threatening.
"How'd you get that device?" Natasha said, eyeing carefully where Loki had disappeared. Clint looked at the ship and then walked away, crossing across the gravel roof to get as far away from the ship as possible. Steve and Tony exchanged these subtle glances, ones you wouldn't notice unless you were staring right at them. Loki had told her the pair didn't get along well, that seemed to have changed. Rose had assumed they hadn't really been in contact since the Battle of New York, she didn't really pay attention to all those Avengers gossip columns that would pop up in the newspapers from time to time. Loki didn't either, he had seemed to put that all behind him.
The green woman looked at Natasha and sighed heavily. Quill nudged her, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "We stole it." He was practically grinning, his chest puffed out with pride.
"I am Groot." Gamora took it from her former sister. Nebula was the one given the job of tracking down all who betrayed Thanos. I am not sure of her current whereabouts. The team tends not to tell me much, thinking I don't listen.
"I do!" Rocket protested. "I tell you lots of stuff." Groot rolled his eyes as Rocket climbed up him and sat on his shoulder. He patted Groot's head for a moment, whispering something in Groot's ear.
"Will you stop talking about me?" Quill snapped. He turned around and started whispering something to Rocket, his hands flailing around as if trying to prove a point.
"Men." Gamora muttered, shaking her head angrily. Natasha dipped her head in agreement. "Loki, we mean you or your friend no harm. You know Thanos wouldn't have hired any of my teammates. They weren't my first pick either."
Very slowly the invisibility spell faded away, leaving Loki with his arms wrapped around Rose protectively. She stepped away, brushing them off. She could handle herself. Darcy leaned forwards, whispering something in Jane's ear, she frowned, repeating whatever it was to Thor, who frowned also. He spun around and said something to Steve. Rose was beginning to wonder if they were playing telephone. Quill finally spun around, throwing his hands up in defeat and stalking over to Rose.
"How did you know I wasn't completely human? The Nova Corps only just told me that."
Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver, flipping it in the air and grinning at him. "It scans stuff, tells you what is is, opens doors, assembles cabinets, the works."
Peter matched her grin, leaning forwards so they were the same height. Loki shifted behind Rose. She wondered if he was nervous, the only humans he had been around in some time were really only her Torchwood team and grocery shopping.
"Can I scan you to see if it works and you're not just pulling my leg?"
Rose nodded, silently handing it over. Quill grabbed it, pointing it at Gamora first, who moved his hand away from her, shaking her head. The Avengers had gathered around, moving in behind Loki, making him press himself against Rose, his hand stiff and cold on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Groot walking over, deep in conversation with Rocket. Quill pointed it at Rose, and the buzzing noise rang out on the quiet roof. The sky was beginning to lighten and Rose realized they'd have to hide the ship. Rex was working on some sort of cloaking device, he'd be thrilled to test it out. Rose doubted this ship had one, she had seen better ships in the universe, despite the impressive paint color it didn't have much else going for it at this point. Quill made a clicking noise with his tongue and then his grin vanished, he handed the screwdriver to Gamora, who raised her eyebrows as she saw the scans. Rose frowned and Loki's grip on her shoulder tightened.
"You are sure you're human?" Gamora asked. Darcy shifted next to Rose, how she had made it there, she wasn't sure.
"Yup. Just a girl from London. Maybe that's Time Vortex residue? Happens to everyone who travels in a Tardis."
Rocket's eyes widened and he made a choking noise that sounded a lot like Tardis.
Gamora shook her head, "This is something different. The energy levels seem like when we held the Orb. I don't understand how you could live with all that. It nearly destroyed the four of us who held it."
"You held the Power Stone, Gamora?" Loki asked, his voice strained.
Rose ignored them, mentally going through all the gems that had been found so far, there was the Tesseract, Loki had called that the Space Stone, Loki's scepter was Mind, the Aether Loki had faked his death for was Reality, and the Orb was Power, which left Time and Soul unaccounted for."
"Do you think it's possible you encountered one of the stones?" Gamora said. Rose mutely shook her head, trying to run through the possibilities of when she could have.
"Barton was under control of the Mind Stone. See if he has the same energy levels." Loki volunteered, jerking his head to where Barton was staring at them from next to the space ship. Gamora grabbed Rose's hand roughly and pulled her through the crowd towards Barton, the sonic in hand. Clint stared at them, tilting his head to the side. He glanced at Natasha, who nodded her head at him. Gamora scanned him, before shaking her head.
"These are much lower. Very faint. You could barely tell he had even been possessed by it."
"I apologize for that by the way." Loki added. Clint scoffed.
Jane rushed forwards, staring at the sonic in awe. "You can tell all that by that thing? What is it? What exactly is it's purpose? What do the energy levels of the stones signify?"
Rose frowned, and then something caught her eye from the corner in the roof, spray paint on the walls that hadn't been there before. Rose's heart nearly sank, when would she be getting a break? The wall read, Bad Wolf.
"Yes." Rose whispered, feeling like she had been punched in the gut. The Doctor and her never really discussed the events on Satellite 5. She asked him about it once and by the way the Doctor had closed off, only telling her that she looked into the Heart of the Tardis and saved a lot of lifes that day by doing so, the Doctor got the energy out of her by doing something, but he refused to tell her what. Which made Rose nervous. None of the details had truly made sense to Rose, she remembered a blur of shapes and colors, and the name Bad Wolf. But what if whatever the Doctor did that caused him to regenerate didn't work, get everything out. Rose needed to contact him, Thanos would come after her if the heart of the Tardis did in fact prove to be the Time Stone, she didn't want to have to worry about Tony's safety. But would the Doctor be able to help if she could contact him?
"Okay, so I'm kinda lost on what's happening right now." Darcy said, walking up to them.
"Something not good, Lady Darcy."
Jane invited whoever would fit to stay in her apartment, Gamora and co. would stay on the Milano, which apparently did have some cloaking. So they wouldn't have to call in Rex, the Jerry of their team after all to retrieve what Torchwood had been working on, allowing them to make small thing invisible. Rose was practically falling asleep as she stood in Jane's flat, waiting for her to figure out where everyone would sleep. It had been a long day for Rose, having to go into work before dusk this morning, for an invasion that was actually staged, and then having to fill out all her paperwork from the last two weeks, leaving Loki to watch Tony after his carpool group dropped him over after school, Rose always hated working so late that she missed her little brother before Jackie picked him up at seven. And then of course came the whole matter of being abducted from her flat, that made for a very stressful evening.
Jane hurried around the room. Her couch apparently reclined on both sides, leaving a small cushion in the middle. She had made a bed, with the help of Steve on both sides, saying two couples on each side if they squeezed. Jane and Thor would take their own bedroom, no one really wanted to even think about going in that room. Darcy would be sleeping with Tony and Steve, which thrilled her to no end as she dragged them off. Natasha took one look at the couch and took all the sheets off of what would have been their side and dumped on the floor, making Clint and her a nest. Jane stared at them but said nothing. Rose ignored all the commotion and was about to fall asleep when she heard Thor's voice, actually whispering.
"Brother-Loki, don't think I haven't noticed the way you look at Lady Rose. Lady Darcy claims I look at Jane the same way."
Rose heard some shuffling and the squeaking of chairs. She wondered if Clint and Natasha knew what was happening.
"Like a friend? Rose is the only person who cares for me since Mother's death."
Thor chuckled, "if that's what you choose to believe."
"The truth? That's what I believe." Loki was being defensive.
"I was never a good brother to you, always mistreating you. Midgardians tend to change your views. I realize now a lot of my flaws. I wish to make things well, Loki. If you need any help, please come to me for as, Lady Darcy says, brotherly advice."
After quite a long silence, the chairs shuffled. "Perhaps." Loki said.
Rose tried to slow down her breathing, pretending to be asleep as Loki walked over. He lightly placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Do you wish for me to sleep on this side or the other?" Loki whispered, his breath warm in Rose's ear.
"Here." She mumbled, her limbs too heavy to move. She was grateful for Loki's warmth as he curled around her.