Disclaimer: Loki's views and opinions within the subject of religion belong solely to Loki, and are not indicative of any views or opinions held by the author. I tried to give him an outlook that matched his overall mindset; to do less felt dishonest to his character. I apologize if the few paragraphs on this subject offend as this is not my intent.

Those paragraphs will be the only time religion is discussed.

/

"Attention," says a mild-mannered voice when I-who-am-incomparable-Odin-King step through a world-gate into Tony Stark's New York penthouse. "Intruder alert. The police have been summoned."

"Summon your master instead," I command. "I would speak with him."

Small panels all along Stark's living area flick red, glaring across industrial gray walls and clean black furniture.

"Guest profile not recognized," the invisible attendant warns me, his cool voice never wavering from professional. "The police have been summoned."

Stark's penthouse is not frightening, even with the alarms triggered. One would think an important person such as he would invest in a few more security measures than The police have been summoned. I stroll to the kitchen area unchallenged.

"Sir," the attendant protests. "I suggest you leave the premises at once. The police are on their way."

"I suggest you let me speak with your master. Tell me where he is."

A buzzer squawks. "Guest profile not recognized," the attendant repeats.

Fates below, he's worse than Heimdall.

The kitchen is empty, too. Two oranges and a bunch of bananas are rusting in a steel bowl. Polished appliances shine under pure white light. There is a photograph on the floor partway under Stark's fridge. I sweep it out with my toe.

Bent photograph. Dusty. Probably lost a while back.

A woman.

Inspiration jolts up my spine. I switch out my Odin-mask for the woman's likeness, turning my illusion's grizzled gray visage strawberry-blonde and pretty. I don't expect this to work, not unless Stark's attendant is—

The red panels blink off.

Stark's attendant says, "Good afternoon, Miss Potts. I apologize for not recognizing you. I have updated my database and called off the police. Would you like me to call Mr. Stark?"

I have to grin. This is . . . beyond measure . . . the worst security system I've ever met. Thanks to this police-ringing dullard, I-as-Miss-Potts could duck behind a doorframe and wait for Stark to return without anyone suspecting something's wrong. I could summon a knife at the last minute. Draw a smile on Stark's neck from ear to ear. I could jump from the landing pad outside and escape while the attendant is still politely warning me, I have summoned the police.

I say, "When will your master return?"

The attendant blares his buzzer. "Voice profile not authorized. Please speak Mr. Stark's guest password."

Voice profile?

I don't know what Miss Potts sounds like. I can't remember what Stark sounds like. I transform myself into Thor, instead. "Attendant! Summon your master. I must—"

Buzzer. "Voice profile not authorized. Please speak Mr. Stark's guest password."

Huh. All right.

At least he hasn't summoned the police again. I don't fancy dealing with Midgard's police on top of everything else.

The plain bread I shared for lunch with Nibelung has not done anything but whet my appetite, so I open Stark's fridge and help myself to his shelves. Stark has a tub of ice cream and little else by way of food, so I filch that along with a spoon and bowl. He also has a perfectly large liquor shelf. I make myself a drink and then carry this meager hoard to his maroon leather couch before the telly.

Stark has the largest telly I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, his flipper is either the smallest flipper I've never seen or it's nonexistent. A brief inspection proves that there are no knobs on his telly, either.

"Attendant?" I call as Miss Potts.

"Voice profile not recognized. Please speak Mr. Stark's guest password." I'm picturing, at this point, an enormous simpleton who's tediously memorized five or six standard phrases he enjoys shouting at innocent people. He probably skulks around in the corners, eating pudding with his hands.

"Where's the flipper?" I say.

Voice profile not recognized.

"How does he turn on the—?"

Voice profile not recognized. Please speak or type guest password.

A display winks to life from mid-air near my right hand. The display has keys like a semi-translucent typewriter and a blank box like the Internet search page Barton had been using.

I have no idea what the password might be.

Hacking into the picture-device is easier than dealing with Stark's manservant. In a few moments I've got the telly remapped to respond to simple hand motions, much like the divination scope on Vorsgard. I'm just contemplating the merits of cartoon bears frolicking in toilet tissue when a giant metal arm on wheels rolls right into my view. The construct is slow-moving. It blocks the cartoon bears degree by degree. I stay cross-legged on Stark's couch while it studies me with its eyeless rubber-tipped claw.

Is this his security? A mechanical arm? If so, I'm not impressed. The giant arm might be good for hauling drunken guests out to the street, but would be near useless in a fight.

We stare each other down.

Then the giant arm rolls forward until it bumps against the couch.

It gently places a screwdriver on my knees.

I . . . pick up the tool in case it's an explosive or—

Nope.

It's a screwdriver.

It has some scuffs on one end and a worn metal hilt. There's even a discolored ring where the rod and hilt connect. It's not a weapon disguised as a screwdriver, or a transmitter, or . . . anything.

Feeling a bit uneasy, I set the tool on Stark's black polished coffee table.

It stays a screwdriver.

The giant arm makes a friendly warbling noise and rolls away, knocking the table askew as it goes.

I stare at nothing for a while. The telly goes on in the background, ignored.

All right. Between I suggest you leave the premises and Here have a free screwdriver, I think Stark's household is madder than I am.

The arm does not reappear. It might be off sharing a pudding with the invisible attendant, who also does not return.

I settle into perusing the vast channel array Stark's telly provides. By the time a door in another part of the penthouse opens and closes, I'm on my third bowl and have decided that mortals are far more discerning with their television now than they were forty years ago. Also, that historical station about Midgard's ruling families makes me feel sorry for the poor innocent Lannisters. Tony Stark's royal ancestors were morons.

Footsteps clap along the stone floor through the hall on my right.

"Miss Potts is in the living room," Stark's attendant tells him, in the distance.

"Look, I know some things were said that—" Aha. Stark's voice. I'll remember for next time, and exchange Miss Potts's mask for Odin's. He rounds the corner and squeaks to a halt. "Honey, you got ugly in your old age."

"You just say the sweetest things."

"That's why you love me." Stark looks around his room for Miss Potts. "Pepper?"

"She isn't here. Your invisible attendant is easy to fool."

He stops in his tracks.

"I am Odin," I say. "King of Asgard."

Stark goes rigid. Not, Wow! The High King of Yggdrasil! rigid; more How can I make you go away? rigid.

That's new.

He sucks in a breath. He seems to think about it. He says, "Thor's daddy?" in rather the same tone I would expect for my own name.

"That's right."

"Ok." Stark jerks back to life and starts pacing his grey stone floor, staying several meters clear from me. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to go find Thor and leave me alone. I'm not in the mood for alien space Vikings today." He pauses. He pivots round to face me, brow furrowed. "Is that my ice cream?"

"And I'm watching your telly," I say.

This makes him pause again, although I'm not sure why. He stares from me to his picture-device and back. He drums his right hand on his thigh. "Are you British? Why are you British? Do you come from Valhalla, England?"

That took an unexpected turn. I set down my spoon. Valhalla? Odin? Ew. "Are you . . . chatting me up?"

"There, you did it again—Wait. No. Why would—?" He squints. "Chatting me up. Telly. Why are you speaking English English? You have a British accent. Thor doesn't have a—"

"I am not speaking English," I say. "I am speaking Allspeak. Your feeble mortal brain is interpreting what I say into your native language."

"You said telly," he says, as if this is a sticking point. "And you—"

"Because that is the name of your picture-device."

"Yeah, in the UK."

I work at levering more ice cream from his container into my bowl, because I know this will irritate him. "I need to speak with SHIELD."

"Ha! Good luck. If you can find what's left—tell you what, don't tell me about it."

The ice cream unsticks with a gentle plop. "What do you mean, If I can find what's left?"

"They're gone. Exploded. Bye-bye." Stark strides forward. He snatches his container, as if I'm a beggar who's wandered in off the pavement. Stark deposits his ice cream on the bookshelf behind him, away from me. "Also, you. Bye-bye."

It isn't every day someone dismisses Odin. I have to suppress a smile. I want to cheer him on.

I'm resigned to say, in the Allfather's gravest voice, "I need your help. Asgard needs your help. You, and the other Avengers."

"Shit." Stark scrubs at his left eye with a fist. "Do not tell me your asshole son broke out of space prison."

"He did."

"Is it too much to ask that people capable of building a stargate can keep Psycho Diva and his one-color Rubik's Cube locked up? Please tell me you remembered to take his glowstick away before carting him off to Azkaban. I gotta say that's on you, buddy."

"Loki is dead," I tell him.

"Good riddance."

I think I liked Stark better when he was trying to chat me up.

"That isn't—" I sigh. Being Odin is more a prison than my cell. I amend, ". . . why I am here. There is a grave threat growing on a planet in Asgard's domain. An invasion is planned for two days' time to cancel this threat, but in the event that this invasion fails every being in our realm and yours will be under attack. I came here to extend an offer of alliance, and to warn the guardians of Earth that such a time may come when we need to unite against a dangerous foe."

Stark stuffs his hands in his pockets. He makes an exasperated sigh, as if I am telling him this specifically to annoy him.

I like him.

"You must find the others SHIELD once brought together to defend your world from the Chitauri," I say.

"Yeah, about that." He gives me a dirty look. "I'm still getting crazies on the roof trying to sacrifice a goat so Reindeer Games will come back and cleanse the world of sinners."

I smirk, although Odin wouldn't. This is the best conversation I've had in some time. Which is sad. "Ah. Religious sadomasochism at its finest."

Stark cocks an eyebrow. "You're some kind of expert on the human race, now?"

I relax into his couch, smiling—although again, Odin wouldn't. "I have lived in your realm many times. Most recently, yes, in London."

"Ha. Nailed it."

"I've noticed that certain individuals among you react to a deity—rather than by trying to live in love and harmony as is almost unanimously prescribed—but by acting as frightened children eager to please a cruel master by biting each other in the neck."

"This from the alien douchebag responsible for the Vikings?" Stark eyes me, and nods. "Yeah, good going."

"But Asgard is a harmonious city," I protest in sing-song. "We don't attack innocent populations. We defend the cosmos from evil. Every schoolchild knows that."

"Yeah, well. You can bet the media's been a factual blast dealing with Tall, Dark, and Spiky's attack in New York. About half the country thinks the Biblical Apocalypse has started and the guy with the horned helmet is Satan."

"They're fangs," I tell him. "Serpent's fangs."

"Yeah? Why are they upside-down?"

I have to pause when the image of downward-pointing fangs fills my head. Er. Both literally and figuratively.

"I think he should have started over," Stark muses. The same image is imprinting itself in his brain, apparently. "Chosen a different spirit animal."

"What you said about horns," I say, to change the subject to something less horrifying. "I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise. Your Christians taking the Norse stories and trying to fit us into archetypes they are familiar with, I mean: Odin—myself—must be God, making Thor Jesus . . ." My lip curls. "Leaving Loki cast as Lucifer to round out the set. Huh. That is actually a frighteningly good comparison—Lucifer and Loki."

Stark looks surprised. "No love lost between father and son, I take it. Was it the helmet? Cause I'm not kidding. That was a hideously stupid helmet."

Is not a stupid helmet.

"You misunderstand." A warning pulse races through my chest. I have the odd sensation of being outside myself, watching myself, knowing what I'm doing and at the same time I know I shouldn't do it. Be a good puppet. Keep your mouth shut. Be Odin. But being around Stark gives me a warm glittery feeling that I don't particularly like. It's distracting. Something in his irreverent deadpan snark, or his rumpled hair. The way he keeps moving around, as if standing still too long causes him physical pain.

After the invasion, I might come back to give him a forcefield generator. Just a small one. A personal shield, maybe—something he can tinker with. I wonder what he'd do with it.

I need to stop thinking about that.

I tip my head against his couch cushion so I can clear my thoughts by studying his ceiling. "I never understood why Satan and Judas were made targets for such ire. If Jesus planned to be executed in order to save your Christians, than he must have plotted to have himself turned over to the Romans. Is that right? Judas is not his betrayer. Judas is his dearest friend and accomplice. Judas is the one Jesus turned to when he needed a dirty scheme for the greater good."

Stark makes a huffing laugh. I can hear him shifting from one foot to the other. "Uh, that's—I guess—an interesting take."

"And as for Satan," I continue, "if God rejects sinners and Satan punishes sinners, then both God and Satan are on the same side. If Satan and God were truly enemies, God wouldn't let Satan be in charge of Hell. The true enemy of God would reward sinners, not punish them. Satan would steal souls from Hell to fill out his own demented paradise, not imprison them under torture because they disobeyed God. You don't let the Soviet Union run your traitors' prison, after all—or at least, I hope you don't."

"Okay," Stark says. I glance over. He's waving a hand at me to distance himself from the conversation, turning away. "You need to talk with a priest. Or an exorcist. Probably an exorcist. I'm the wrong guy for this, uh, whatever this is."

I hesitate, and offer: "I will leave you with a last point, then. Do you remember the Convergence? If Loki hadn't played the villain to convince Asgard we needed to extract the Tesseract from your realm and convinced your armies to relinquish it into our hands, the Chitauri would have poured through these natural gates unchecked. There would have been no convenient device on your side to shut down and stop the invasion. Once the hive came through your world would have died."

"I'm sure he had all that in mind when he threw me out a window."

"Asgard was too well-defended for them to risk a direct assault," I explain. "Our fleet would have torn theirs apart. The Tesseract was safe during the Joining of Realms."

Stark is drumming his fingers on his thigh again. I can tell he's losing interest. Although Stark is on his own world what a sorceress is on mine—a lifelong scholar with an unslakable lust for knowledge—clearly his ambition does not extend into the political.

I suppress a sigh. That doesn't matter. I finish Odin's self-aggrandizing speech with, "If Thor returns to Earth to rally your Avengers, you all must go with him to Asgard."

And that catches his interest. His fingers go still. Stark's jaw quirks to one side as if he wants to stifle an imaginary yawn—but there is a sharp light in his eyes. "Asgard is . . . where you space Viking guys live?"

"Hope we do not fail," I make Odin tell him. "But if we do, you will get to see that stargate." I'm assuming stargate is Midgardian for world-gate.

Stark makes a last play for bored but fumbles his frown twice. He finally shrugs. "Yeah. Ok. If you guys drop the ball—again—I guess I can save your asses. Cause you asked so nicely." He locks his arms across his chest. "Maybe. No guarantees. Maybe. If you're real good."

I get up from his couch, preparing to depart back to the realm of three royal courts teeming with Odin's bloodthirsty sycophants. The telly blares in the background, some advertisement for a car brand with which I'm not familiar as mortals in hats chase each other on a cobbled street. Rain streams from a night sky without stars. A pale madwoman with wild white hair points a gun at something off to her left. A red telephone is ringing, at her elbow.

The madwoman with funny hair—

Oh. That reminds me.

I say, "May I ask you a question?"

"Am I always this awesome?" Stark pretends to guess. "Yes. Yes I am."

I check a smirk. "Does your world still have mental hospitals?"

Stark's eyebrows raise. "Thinking you should lock yourself in? Good idea."

"Just a matter of personal curiosity. Once, a while back, one could say that a disheveled soul looks like an escapee from a mental hospital."

He makes a so-so kind of motion. "Why?"

"I like to keep abreast of your world's latest developments. The last time I was in New York I made sure to learn the English King's name that I could declare myself a loyal subject and so better fit in with the locals. The year was 1775."

"Oh, shit." Stark smiles.

"Shit is right. I was shot through the heart and when I didn't die the locals tried to burn me at the stake for witchcraft. I miss the Scottish peoples of some decades before that. Oh well. No matter. I will take my leave now. Pray—if you pray—that I do not return."