The moment Corvin saw Agent Coulson walk through the elevator doors, envelope in hand, she knew it had begun.

They had been having a small get together with friends, a celebration of the completed tower. Pepper and Happy were there, and Rhodey had even flown in to share a couple of drinks. It had been a good afternoon after the final piece had been slot into place.

The mood had dampened considerably after Coulson had walked in.

The Agent handed off two files, one to Tony and one to Rhodey, before disappearing back down the elevator with Pepper, who had to make it to DC.

Corvin stared at Tony until he glanced up at her. She gave him a significantly long look before gesturing discreetly to the envelope with her head. She could hear his shuttering intake of breath from across the room.

It was time.

Rhodey had to deny the request. His ties to the military made him unable to associate with another government group without prior authorization. So the man packed up and headed to base, hoping to get his higher-ups to hear him out.

Corvin was packed up in a specialized cat crate. It was air tight, pressurized, Air conditioned, and had the softest pillow inside. Tony carried her on his suit, using a special magnet on the top of the crate to attach to his chest piece. The inside of the crate rotated to keep her upright when he turned, so she was never flung around. She was very grateful for Tony's foresight when building it.

At the moment, they were headed to Germany to apprehend Loki.

Corvin was very excited and nervous at the same time. It had taken some convincing to get Tony to let her come, but, after hours of typing in all caps, she had succeeded. She had to be there, to warn Tony when the time was right and gauge the other Avengers.

She was very excited.

Approaching Loki's location, Corvin's crate detached from the Iron Man armor. A pair of wings folded out from the sides and jets from the back. Her crate zoomed off in a different direction and settled well outside of the fight zone. She was able to watch from behind the glass door of the crate as her human fired on the Norse god and flung him backwards.

Loki gave in quickly, and Tony and the Captain got him secured and onto the jet, ready for transport back to the Helicarrier. With a quick command to his HUD, her crate hummed back to life and hovered over to him.

"What's that?" She heard Rogers ask.

"My emotional support animal." Tony said in a bland tone. She knew that her human had mixed feelings about the Captain, all stemming from his not-so-great childhood. She wasn't particularly fond of him either, based on what she had seen of the movies while she had been human. But she was, begrudgingly, willing to give this version of Rogers the benefit of the doubt until he proved himself an ass.

Rogers was giving her crate, which was now fastening onto a seat with the strapps firmly holding it in place, an odd look. Her head poked into his line of sight behind the glass, and his expression grew incredulous.

Corvin ignored him and looked towards Loki. He spared her a once over before dismissing her. Which was interesting. Corvin had thought, with his power, that he should be able to sense that something was off about her. But it appeared not.

Loki, however, looked very odd in her sight. Corvin had to focus to see it, but he had a strange sheen over his body, one that appeared mostly iridescent and clear, but the colors solidified more around his head. Blue and yellow circled around his eyes, ears and mouth like ropes, rotating and pulsing like a heartbeat, the strands digging in and out of his skin like needle-work. It looked uncomfortable.

Letting her focus go, Corvin pulled her head back and out of sight. Turning to the back of her crate, she pressed her claw into a small indent until it clicked. Panels shifted to the side and a small keyboard and screen was revealed.

'LOKI LOOK BAD', she typed before hitting send. A little three-dot chat bubble appeared below her message shortly after.

'Meaning?' Was Tony's reply.

'I C LOKI MORE THN U C'

'You've seen him before?'

'NO MY EYE C MORE THAN HUMAN'

'What do you see?'

'ROPES OF POWER AROUND HIS EYES AND MOUTH'

'Ropes of power?'

'I C ENERGY HE HAS ROPE NOT HIS HURT HIM EYES LOOK AT EYES'

'How can you tell it's not his?'

'COLOR WRG FEEL WRG'

'What's your thoughts?'

'IDK YET TELL U WHEN DO'

'Ok, lmk what you see.'

Corvin turned back to the front and continued to observe the plane's passengers.

The whole Thor thing still happened, which was expected. Though she was a little bummed not to witness it first hand. The 'Mother's drapes' scene alone would have made her year.

When the group of them finally reached the Helicarrier, Corvin was a bundle of anxiety. Her chest burned as Tony carried her crate along the halls, her tail twitching back and forth. She could smell the anxiety coming off her human, and this strangely soothed her, allowing her protective instincts to come forth and overcome her own anxiety. The Mom Friend Override, as she liked to call it.

As they entered the main room where the others sat, Corvin ignored the human's discussion. She, instead, focused on the people.

Many of them smelled rather awful. Human body odor was unpleasant most of the time, but a lot of the SHIELD personnel smelled especially putrid. Huffing her breath, Corvin waited until Tony had placed her carrier onto the table and opened the glass door fully before stepping out. Or well… strutting out. She gave herself a great big stretch as soon as she exited, her fluffy tail coming up in an elegant arch over her body. A quick shake of her head settled her fur and made her jeweled collar jingle

Corvin always looked fabulous, obviously, and it was good for others to acknowledge it.

She let out a 'merp' calling her human's attention on her. Tony reached out and gave her a good pat before continuing his conversation with the other humans around him. She then waltzed along the table, giving everyone a good sniff to memorize their scents. Natasha, Steve and Bruce had a base scent of chemical, which she assumed was their serums. Thor smelled like ozone and stardust had a lovechild with testosterone.

She cozied up to Bruce, her fluffy tail flicking casually side to side as she biffed her head into the perplexed smelling man.

"Your cat?" Bruce questioned Tony.

"Yep, don't go anywhere without her. My own personal anti-stress kitten." Tony grinned back, clearly pleased with Corvin's acceptance of the man. Bruce's hand reached out to tentatively pet her back. Tony gave him the quick rundown of where-to where-not to pet and Corvin quickly found herself in Bruce's lap, purring like an engine. She could smell the man's stress levels slowly lowering the longer he held her.

Corvin plotted as Bruce carried her from the room after they finished on the bridge. She needed to get to Loki somehow. And it needed to be out from under Shield's eye. That would bring up some hard to answer questions that she really didn't feel like dealing with.

She could try and speak with him when he was at Stark Tower later on, but that was a while away and anything could happen between here and there. She had already messed up the timeline well enough, many things were in the air and she risked a lot coming to the helicarrier in the first place.

Also, Loki was still under mind control from Thanos. What Loki saw, Thanos saw. And if she starts babbling on about reality powers and dimension shifting, Thanos is going to stick his ugly nose right up her furry ass.

Which meant she needed to convince someone to hit Loki on the head really really hard. Not very difficult given his recent endeavors, Barton alone would enthusiactically suplex his godly ass into the concrete given half the chance.

Her crate was in the lab, thankfully. She ducked inside and tapped at her keypad.

'BRING SUIT IN ROOM NEED IT' she hit send and heard the ping of Tony's phone go off.

'What's up? What did you see?' popped up on her screen.

'SMTH WRG SAFTY FOR U'

'Banner?'

'NO ROOM SMLL BAD OF ANGER NOT BANNER SEPTER WRG'

'Ok, it's on the way. What about the scepter smells wrong?'

'SMLS LIKE ANGER WHEN U CLOSE U SMLL LIKE IT'

'You think the scepter is somehow altering our emotions?'

'YES'

'Ok, thank you.'

'COLOR MATCH LOKI EYE MOUTH ROPE'

'Maybe the ropes are his connection to the scepter? How he controls it?'

'OR CONTROL OVER HIM'

'You think the scepter is also controlling Loki? Why?'

'DNKOW FEEL WRG SMELL WRONG'

'Ok, I'll see what I can find.'

'THANK YOU'

' 3 '

This was harder than she thought. To convince Tony that maybe Loki was also being controlled without giving away information she had no way of knowing. It was a delicate dance and she had four furry left feet.

Tony brought up the feed of Loki's cell and watched the Asgardian stand, still as a statue, in the middle of the cage. He zoomed the feed onto Loki's face and took a good look at his eyes.

"Loki's eyes…" Tony hummed to himself, gaining Bruce's attention.

"What about them?" the other doctor asked.

"They are the same color as the men Loki took. We got a good look at them through CTV in Germany."

"And?"

"Hm, might be nothing," Tony swiped his hand, clearing the screen. "Might be everything. I need to speak to Thor."

"About what?" came another voice from the door. Steve walked into the room, looking curious. Tony pulled up the feed again for the two men and tapped on the screen.

"Loki's eyes. Same exact shade and shape of the men he used the scepter on."

"You think Loki could be mind controlled." Bruce put it together quickly, looking at the feed with a contemplative gaze.

"Could just be his eye color. Would make sense if he's the one in control of the others." Steve contributed.

"Maybe, but either way It'd been good to look into. Imagine the info we could get out of him if he was being mind controlled and we freed him?" Tony said, gesturing with his hands.

"You think someone else is behind Loki?" Bruce asked

"I hadn't considered it. But you gotta think, who gave Loki the scepter? Who gave him the Chitauri? Loki, the second prince who everyone thought was dead, how would he have been able to get his hands on an entire army?"

"These are aliens, Stark, we don't know how their culture or currency works."

"Maybe not, but we know how power works. And while Loki has enough personal power to make me nervous, he does not have enough to amass an army at no expense. He dealt with someone, and I'm guessing that Loki got the short end of the stick."

"How are you so confident of this?" Bruce inquired, his face open with curiosity. Questioning but not belittling.

Tony reached over to the screens again, pulling up charts and readings that Corvin couldn't make heads or tails of.

"I've been scanning the scepter and Loki since we got ahold of them. The scepter releases a very unique energy signature that I've found traces of on Loki. I bet that if I scanned the men he controlled, they'd have the same.

"Could just be residue from using the scepter at all." Steve butted in. Corvin was feeling a little pissy by the man's continued self-appointed Devil's Advocate role.

"Yes, but what if it isn't is what I'm saying." Tony let the words hang in the air, giving both men a long look each.

"It's worth looking into," Bruce put forward, turning to look at Steve as well.

Steve gave a slow nod, "I'll try and get Thor down here then."

Corvin turned out as they continued with a different conversation, one closer to the original timeline, which she didn't care about.

That had gone a lot better than she expected. Rely on Tony to get the job done, that man was a fucking miracle.

Far away, Stark Tower was infiltrated. Systems came online, lights flickering on in sockets and hydraulic system rotating joints. Hidden doors opened and out stepped dozens of Iron Legion. JARVIS's voice rang out from their speakers.

"All Systems Online. Primary objective: Protect."

Even further away, in an isolated fortress. A large screen played news of the altercation in Germany. A man sipped a strong drink while watching. He huffed to himself as he put the drink down.

"It iz time, eh?"

Corvin watched the chaos unfold in the lab. Humans were prone to dramatics, but she didn't mind most of the time since it proved quality entertainment.

Fury had come in with heavy stomps and hissed words on his tongue, quickly followed by Rogers, Thor and Romanoff. Corvin watched in fascination as the group squared off.

She watched as Tony and Rogers went head-to-head, her hackles rising at Roger's words. She knew her human could handle himself, but she didn't have to like it. Moving quietly around the room, she made her way to the table with the scepter on it and hopped up, placing herself between the gem and the others. She observed the glowing sphere housing the mind stone and focused until the yellow tendrils appeared. Cautiously and carefully, while the others were distracted, she reached out to the line that connected to Rogers (she wasn't going to try it first on her human after all. What if she fucked up?). She gently touched the rope and was surprised to feel it under her paw, as tangible and solid as a real rope. She gave it a few tugs, watching Rogers closely for any reaction, but saw none. Without too much thought behind it, Corvin extended her claws and ripped through the tendril.

Rogers gave a visible start, his eyes squinting up. He gave his head a shake before looking around, seemingly dazed and confused.

"Rogers?" Tony asked as the other stepped back from where he had been previously in his face.

"I… feel weird." Rogers said, a hand coming to his head. Corvin watched him curiously, wondering if she should also cut the tethers to her human. Rogers seemed ok as he binked heavily a few times. "We shouldn't be arguing about this," he said finally, "we have bigger fish to fry."

Unfortunately, that was when the bomb went off, and the group was sent sprawling. Corvin hit the ground hard, her head jared, which fucking hurt. She quickly regained her bearing and dashed into her crate, knowing she'd be useless in this fight. She sat in her box for a long moment, listening to the crashes and bangs of fights and gunfire. The helicarrier shook, and the roar of the Hulk was heard from floors below. Corvin felt like a lump, unable to do more than sit on the sidelines.

But maybe she could-

Without truly thinking things through, Corvin impulsively dashed from the room and down the hall, following the faint scent of something otherworldly. Lights flashed, alarms blared, and she did her best not to get trampled by the many feet running up and down the halls. She felt the helicarrier shake under her, the floor tilting as they lost altitude. The area around her shuddered and groaned at the new shift of weight, pieces splitting apart as whatever supported this part of the helicarrier failed and began to give away.

Shit shit shit!

Her nails scrambled for purchase on the metal floor as she cursed whoever had designed this thing.

By a stroke of luck, Thor fell through the wall a little ways ahead of her. She hissed and yowled at him from where she slipped along the floor, her paws touching down on the wall as the structure tilted. The alien prince seemed to notice her plight and dashed over on surprisingly agile feet, trailing dust behind him. Scooped up into deliciously muscled arms, Corvin was carried from the hall like a true damsel in distress. She was fairly disappointed when he sat her down once they reached a new set of hallways that were more structurally sound. She wanted to stay longer in his delectable arms, feel them, smell them, maybe chew on them a little-

"No!" she heard Thor roar, breaking her out of her thirsty, muscled daydream. Goddammit. She cursed herself as she ducked into the detention room and slipped into the shadows.

She watched Loki trick Thor into the glass and the two bicker for a moment before Agent Coulson came in. Corvin didn't have any particular attachment to the Agent, but letting him get stabbed when she knew about it seemed like a dick move, even if she knew he would live.

So she ducked behind him and sunk her teeth into the air.

All in all, she didn't feel bad for biting Loki in the leg, the dude was kind of being a cunt.

Loki's pained yell gave him away, and Coulson turned and fired without a thought, catching the invisible god in the chest and sending him through the wall. Coulson dipped quickly back and tapped the keyboard to release Thor from his confinement. With a nod of thanks, Thor took up the right side of the Agent as they advanced on the Loki-sized hole in the wall. But the Trickster was, unfortunately, gone.

Corvin gave a grumble, walking forward and rubbing herself against the two mens' legs. Coulson looked down and gave her a once over. She gave the man a 'merp' and he reached down and gave her a quick pat.

"Smart cat."

Later, after the dust settled, the group converged on the bridge again. Tony was feeling a little banged up from his trip to the Tilt-a-whirl of an engine and had an icepack pressed to his thumping noggin. Licorice sat under his arm like a fuzzy armrest, her purring a quiet distraction to the carnage around them.

The fight had been rough, but they pulled through by the skin of their teeth. Banner was gone now, but Tony was confident that he would show up again.

Now comes the tricky part.

He had scanned Barton once the unconscious man had been brought to the medical labs. The archer had shown reading eerily similar to Loki, but in less quantities due to his 'forceful cognitive recalibration.' He pulled up the reading and laid them out to the others and explained what they meant.

"You're saying Loki is being controlled?" Thor asked, looking over from where he stood.

"I'm saying it's a possibility. One we need to look into. If we can get Loki on our side of things we can end things before they get worse. Whoever is pulling the strings can't be his friend if he's this deep."

"If it is true what you say then whoever is controlling Loki will be brought to justice." Thor growled, his grip on his hammer tightening.

"How do we even break the mind control?" Rogers butt in from where he sat, looking between Tony and Thor.

"Forceful cognitive recalibration." Tony said, gaining two confused looks. He sighed deeply, his eyes threatening to roll back into his head. "Hit him really fucking hard on the head."

"That I can do," Thor huffed, his face set in a grouchy pout.

"How do we find him?" Rogers asked. "All your gear was destroyed in the explosion."

Tony felt Licorice tense up under his hand, her head swiveling to look at him. Her yellow eyes bore into his with such intensity, Tony wondered how he could have ever missed how smart she was. She blinked at him, slowly and meaningfully.

"We got hit, right before the explosion hit." Tony hummed, "New York. two mile radius."

"Why didn't you bring that up before!?" Rogers shouted, glaring at Tony. This time he made no effort to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head.

"Uh, maybe because I was trying to keep a giant aircraft carrier from falling out of the fucking sky?" He drawled, annoyed at Roger's idiocy. His father had really showboated this guy?

Rogers let out a wordless hiss, his fingers digging into the edge of the table and denting it. He felt a vibration from under his hand and looked down to see Licorice glaring at the super soldier with venom in her eyes, a low growl raising from her throat. He stroked her fur, hoping to calm down his protective cat.

"Enough chatter, we got a cube to find and an invasion to thwart." Tony cut across as Rogers went to open his mouth. The other man huffed again but gave a curt nod.

"Suit up." he said.

And Tony did just that. He was thankful that he had his suit in the room earlier, it had made his dash to the failing turbine much faster and efficient. It was currently banged up and half a leg in the scrap yard, but it would get him back to New York in one piece barring any complications on the way.

He kept that thought in mind as he soared off the helicarrier, his boots stuttering here and there. The flight was wobbly, but he made it back in time to see Loki in his penthouse and Selvig turning the machine on on the roof. Firing upon the damn thing didn't work, and Tony was knocked ass over kettle when his shot rebounded on him. With an annoyed grunt, he landed on his landing pad, side eyeing Loki the whole time.

"Please tell me you're here to appeal to my humanity," the god purred, eyeing Tony in a predatory way. Yeesh, Tony felt like a kid being tempted into the back of a white van with candy.

"Ah, no, not really Reindeer Games."

"Oh? Then do tell me, Man of Iron," Loki crooned, patronizingly, "tell me how you're going to plead with me to stop this. Going to beg? Offer me riches? Power?" Loki laughed low and cruel, his blue eyes glinting eerily in the light. "You have no idea what power, true power, is."

"You know," Tony replied, ignoring the obvious goading, "I don't beg at all unless there's some kinky fun time happening. I mean, you got the leather get-up on the nose, but the whole world-take-over thing is a real boner killer."

Loki looked absolutely flabbergasted, his mouth opening and shutting a few times as he made sense of Tony's words. "What?"

"Ya know, bow-chicka-wow-wow" Tony gyrated his hips, exaggerating his eye wiggles. "I'd say whips and chains but I think you'd get off a little too well to that-"

"Enough!" Loki shouted, his cheeks tinged pink. "Enough of your- your depravity! I am a God and I will not be spoken of like some common bar wench!"

"Are you sure? You strike me as quite a power bottom-" Tony dodged out of the way of a bolt of light shot out of the scepter. "Ok ok! Damn! Shit!" he said, holding up his hands. "Yeesh! You think the God of Mischief would know how to take a damn joke!"

Loki hissed in anger, slowly raising his scepter once again.

Tony did a quick shuffle behind the bar, putting some concrete between himself and the pissy alien.

"Want a drink? I want one. Got apple juice too if whisky ain't your thing." he prattled, pouring himself a finger of whisky. He shot it back, hoping to calm his nerves.

"The Chitauri are coming, there is no changing that. Whatever ploy you seek to unfold here won't work. I've already won!"

"Have you though?" Tony asked, his face scrunching up to match his dubious tone.

"Yes," Loki hissed, stalking forward, close enough that Tony could feel the God's breath on his face. "And I won't stop until-"

Loki's words were cut off as a red and silver blur flew through the open windows and straight into him.

"I'm listening," Tony said to the now open air in front of him, feeling cheeky.

He looked over to the other side of the room where a huge divot in the ground now laid, with Thor and Loki wrestling within the endzone. The two scrambled like angry cats, hissing and howling at each other as they fought. Tony quickly got out of the way, cackling lightning and blue-green power scorching the ground where he just stood, and called for JARVIS to deploy his suit.

It was thankfully quick to deploy and wrapped itself tightly around him.

"Sir there is a disturbance on the roof." JARVIS said as soon as the helmet folded over his head.

"Oh shit. Deploy the Iron Legion! And send out an evac notice to the surrounding streets, we need these civilians off the streets, send the Legion to it." he barked into the coms.

"Right away, Sir."

Tony sped off through the open windows and up to the roof, where a gaping portal to the unknown had just opened.