A/N: Holy cow. Another update only ten days later. I am on fire!

"You've been asleep too long, you know."

A faint smile, an amused note slipping from between his lips. His eyes did not open. Not even when her mouth brushed his, though he reciprocated with a gentle, languorous sort of enthusiasm. A thumb skimmed his jawline.

"Are you chiding me?"

"I might be."

One eye opened to the world, and his lips toyed with mirth. There she was. Sat by him on the bed, dressed in something his oft-lecherous mind craved to tear from her form.

"Get your mind out of the gutter."

He laughed. How carefree this was, how effortless. His hand grasped her chin, and he gently brought her down to kiss him, sighing against her mouth. There was a glow surrounding her, illuminating. Her eyes were brighter, a piercing electric shade. A human might have said she looked angelic. But Asgard did not have such mythology, and Valkyries were not that beatific. Loki's gaze softened, but it burned when she pinned his hands above his head, her grin devilish. Playful.

"Something on your mind, my queen?" he asked.

"Oh, always." Her smirk broadened, and suddenly she was not her, her skin was a violent shade of purple, her face was creased, lined, inhuman, and those eyes –

"Too late."

A searing pain.

Loki sat up, gasping, startling those in the room. Thor stepped forwards, seeing the sweat on his brother's brow, his wild-eyed gaze, this appearance a sharp shock to those who had only ever seen the calculated, malicious side of the trickster god.

"Brother –"

"Where is she? Where is she?"

"I'm here," Eva said, stepping from the corridor into the room. Instantly Loki relaxed, though his heart still played the beat of war. "What happened? Nightmare – hey!"

But Loki would not release her. His hands gripped her face, and he peered intently into her eyes, trying to ascertain the damage. If Thanos had control of her mind, he would never forgive himself. His consciousness breached her own, sifting through her memories, her vital cognitive functions. Finding nothing, he breathed a sigh of relief, and finally lowered his hands. Eva frowned. Such agony in his eyes, for once in plain sight.

"You're alright," he said softly. Her eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline.

"Shouldn't I be?"

His lips thinned, and Eva noticed just how tired he was.

"No. You shouldn't."

He made to leave the room, but several armed men raised their weapons. Frustration fell over his features. Thor gave the men warning looks, and they slowly lowered their guns.

"Loki. You can't leave until you've explained what's going on," came Eva's surprisingly soft tone. "Nor until you've healed properly."

Those words seemed to unlock everything, and he hissed in sudden pain as it all came flooding back. His otherwise bare abdomen was on fire, seething beneath the layers of gauze and bandages that some mortal had no doubt wrapped around him with less than noble intentions. So preoccupied was he with this sudden torment that he did not shrug away when Thor placed a supportive hand at the small of his back.

"Sit, brother," he urged. "Rest. You won't be harmed here, I will make sure of that."

Loki barely heard him, furious. Those damned Chitauri. They had attacked him. On his orders, on the orders of that bastard creature. Giving in and sitting on the edge of the bed whilst simultaneously trying not to wince, he looked up as Hill walked into the room, accompanied by – joy of joys – the mortal Avengers.

"What are the Chitauri doing?" he asked quietly, knowing no one would lie to him now, if only to rub his face into the dirt. Hill folded her arms, steely as always.

"They are running loose, Loki. Seems like they're not taking your orders anymore." An arched eyebrow, questioning.

"No," Loki muttered. "No, they are not."

"Then whose?"

He placed a hand on his stomach, fighting the sudden desire to bite his lip. Still tender, this wound, but he would not die from it. Eva gently touched his shoulder. Lie back, her eyes said. Rest. He found himself incapable of disobeying, and slowly laid himself back against the pillows, bringing his legs up onto the bed. His eyes closed.

"He is stronger than any creature your world will have encountered before, perhaps the strongest you will ever encounter. Stronger than I. Stronger than Thor. You have nothing that could hold him off. Not even your nuclear atrocities could deter him."

It clicked then for Eva, and she spoke before Hill could douse him in icy words.

"That's what you've been doing, isn't it? Whenever you disappeared?"

Loki ran his tongue along his teeth. "Yes. You might all think me a heartless monster, but I will not see Earth fall. It is one of the Nine Realms, after all – Eight Realms does not have so much of a ring to it, wouldn't you agree?"

There was silence, broken by the soft thump of Mjolnir being set upon the floor. Eva turned her head to see Thor, pale. It did not suit him, the golden prince. Worry had aged him, Eva noted. There were lines on his face she was certain she had not seen before.

"Mother was right to have faith in you," he said quietly, and Eva thought she detected a crack of emotion in his voice. Loki's smile was bitter.

"Was she?"

Thor had no words to offer his little brother then. Loki's acid was something he still had trouble with. The mischief he could handle, but the cold anger, the hostility… It was still new for him. Still a barrier that he could not yet cross.

"What do we do?"

Heads turned to see Steve in the doorway, having listened to every word. Loki exhaled.

"I will need a meeting," he said carefully – and then, as an afterthought, "And a glass of scotch."

Several eyebrows rose at that, but Hill did not quibble, ordering the armed guards and the assembled Avengers out of the room. They obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and she followed, though pausing at the doorway to address Loki.

"We'll hold a meeting in fifteen minutes. I assume you can walk."

With that, she was gone, down the hallway.

Eva glanced at her husband.

"You really fucked up, didn't you?"

Loki surprised himself by laughing.

Eva took the seat beside a now fully-dressed Loki, partly to avoid sitting near someone like Natasha who might skin her if the god did anything nasty, and partly because Loki looked like he might skin Eva if she didn't sit by him. (Eva silently added that insecurity to the list in her mind.) Thor sat on the other side of him, with Mjolnir resting oh so casually on the table-top.

"So, what – or who – exactly are we dealing with?" Clint asked, eyeing Loki less than favourably. Loki pondered briefly over how pleasant it had been, influencing the archer's mind – he might want to save Earth, but he couldn't give up all his sadistic tendencies – before turning his attention to the mortal's query.

"He comes from a race known as titans," Loki began, finger idly running along the rim of his glass. The scotch was pleasant enough – he'd been surprised they actually had it – but it wasn't a patch on his own store back in New York. "His name is Thanos, and across the universe he is known as the being who courts Death. Death with a capital D."

"As in the personification?" Despite all she had seen, Natasha still possessed a degree of scepticism towards certain extra-terrestrial notions. Loki inclined his head.

"I would imagine his pursuit of the Nine Realms is due – not to put too fine a point upon it – to his desire to woo his lady love. Even titans have their weaknesses, it seems. His grasp of the mind is far greater than mine. Only with the help of the sceptre could I bend the human consciousness, but he has no need of such an instrument. He is wholly capable of doing that just by wishing it."

An uneasy quietness fell over the room. There was no need to vocalise their thoughts. Everyone was picturing it. All of a sudden Loki seemed like a benevolent guide compared to the horror looming on the horizon. Loki of course knew exactly what they were thinking – and had the situation not been so hazardous, he would have felt smug. Perhaps even let the ghost of a smile edge his lips. But not now. There was too much at stake for even a trickster god to jest.

"What do we do?" Steve asked quietly, his fists clenched. The question they all wanted an answer to – and if his reply did not suffice, Norns only knew what grief they'd put Loki through. The god licked his lips, choosing his words with care.

"I have erected several monoliths throughout your world. They will act as power conductors. What they will do – should I succeed – is carry my magic much like your wires do electricity. At present they are imbued with a protective spell."

To Eva's surprise, Thor appeared in awe of his brother; so unguarded was the Thunderer in his expression that it took everyone else at the table aback.

"You have that skill? It took my grandfather an age to construct that part of the Bifrost!"

Loki afforded his sibling a dry smile, just on the right side of patronising, as was his habit. "I learnt it, yes. Funny the things you can learn in books, brother mine."

The atmosphere had noticeably altered from tension to relief. If Loki's magic held…

"Are we safe?" Stark spoke up, unusually quiet. Loki turned his head, and nodded once, his mind wondering curiously at this canvas of human suffering. Gone was the cockiness, replaced by an uncharacteristic caution, a measured sort of composure. Only a mask, of course. The god had no doubt that the billionaire wanted to watch him fall – but he couldn't. Not so soon. Loki was needed – and Stark hated it.

"Yes. Once I am healed, I will go to the nearest stone and activate the spell."

"How long will that take?"

"Not long. After all, protective magic needs to be quick, does it not?"

He had a point there. Hill finished tapping on her tablet, fixing her iron stare upon him.

"And what if it doesn't work? Are you prepared to have the blood of billions on your hands, Loki? The blood of innocents, of children?"

Loki rose from his chair to his feet then, seeming untroubled by her words, a shadow of his arrogant self returning to the fore.

"I almost committed genocide once, Maria dear. I suppose we shall see, shan't we?"

He vanished from the room – and Eva closed her eyes as she too disappeared.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed, let me know your thoughts!

Lightning xoxo