Hey, short chapter this time. We're jumping into some real action next time around though, so prepare yourselves! This one is sort of filler, so I hope you enjoy just a bunch of random shit (And some important foreshadowing).

Thank you so much for the comments btw 3 We'll see about a romance. Those things take time and I like to focus on character development.

IDon'tOwnMarvel

Waking up again, I couldn't describe the relief that came with not having that tearing pain in my side.

"Oh man, I'm dead." I mumbled, pulling the soft cover over my head to hide from the light coming through my eyelids while curling my knees up closer. "What a bummer?"

"Not quite."

I opened my eyes at the familiar voice and pulled the cover down to look at the god. "Huh?"

Loki was laid back on his own bed on the other wall, staring at the ceiling. I opened my eyes a little more to get a better look at the room. The walls were metal and I was on one of the two beds in the room, each on an opposite wall with a window on the far end by my feet. Outside that window was...well, space.

"Did we win?" I looked at him next. "I think a lady tried to kill me."

"Asgard has fallen." He shrugged, making the ball disappear and just folding his hands together on his stomach. "Hela is…gone. It was a win by desperate means. Certainly would've been easier had you not gotten yourself stabbed. Lissa saved your life."

"You just gonna blame me for everything?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Didn't I save your life first?"

He turned his head to look at me and I just stared back.

"I can't read thoughts." I whispered, furrowing my brow. "Have you just been watching me sleep?"

"I wouldn't call it sleeping." He scoffed, looking away. "You had a lot to say."

"That's an invasion of privacy."

"It's not a big ship."

"Yes it is?" I looked back behind my head towards the metal door, putting on a poorly simulated accent to mock him a little. "It's bloody massive."

Loki looked at me again. "Are you still in pain?"

"No."

"Then you have no reason to be sharp." He snipped, rolling his eyes. "I was being nice and respecting your request."

I knitted my brows together in confusion with a frown. "What request?"

"You don't remember?" He looked back between my eyes before sitting up. "Then I'll leave."

I stuck my arm out of the covers, holding out an open hand.

He stopped, staring at the door for a moment before accepting defeat and pulling the sling rings out of thin air to drop in my hand. "Don't go far."

"I won't." I shook my head, sitting up again. "I just miss my dad."

"And here I was thinking that you had no family." He walked on to the door. "Obviously you belong somewhere. You just refuse to accept it."

I didn't get another word in before he shut the door again and left down the hall. I looked over the sling ring and my alarming change of clothes into a more comfortable set of what had to be something Asgardian. Wondering who put them on me was too much of a scary concept for me to handle right then though, so I just stood up off the bed and started by looking down at the empty space on my side where I had been stabbed. There was nothing beside the faint outline of what could be a scar.

Next, I slipped those sling rings on my fingers with one person in mind. Stepping through the portal was the easy part. The hard part was holding back tears properly when I saw him.

"Tony." I felt every tense feeling dissipate off me then when he looked back.

His face fell a little and he held out a hand. "Come here."

I fell into him and just started crying. It had been a long two weeks and even after that nap, I was emotionally exhausted after fighting for my life again.

"Hey, kiddo, I've got you." He held me up, hugging me back tight with his face in my hair. "It's okay."

With a gasp from the other side of the living room, I was snatched away from Tony in a heartbeat and found myself picked up by someone else.

"Hi," I laughed a little through the tears, just hugging Pietro too while he squeezed me tight with his face tucked against my shoulder. "I guess I missed you too."

"I thought you might be gone for good." His voice broke, then turned his face to press a kiss on my cheek and glare at me. "Don't do that!"

"Ew, Pete." I raised a hand to rub away the kiss with a laugh, wiping tears too. "Not that much. And I don't think I can stay long."

"Why not?" A familiar voice demanded from behind me.

I let go of Pietro to look and smile at Steve next with Natasha and Wanda close behind. "Hey, Wanda came back from her trip! Is Vision around too?"

She frowned a little at that. "Lincoln, that was-"

"Where have you been?" Natasha interrupted, "The wizard told us you were busy."

"Oh yeah," I rolled my eyes, "He's in for a piece of my mind when I see him. He abandoned me with Thor and Loki so I just had to be a part of their family drama."

"You were near Loki?" Tony spoke up again, giving me a worried look with the others.

"Did he hurt you at all?" Pietro asked.

Steve moved over closer. "Where is he now?"

"He's fine, guys." I laughed a little, "He didn't hurt anyone. And I have to go back to check on the Asgardian people so I can make sure they make it here safe. Obviously, now that Loki listened for once and didn't take the tesseract, they'll be able to make the full trip without intervention and we might actually not have to fight a psychotic purple Titan at all."

Tony blinked and Steve sighed, looking away.

"You mean to say that you rested our future in the hands of Loki?" Natasha asked incredulously while Steve pinched the bridge of his nose with a quiet groan.

"Are you sure he listened?"

I nodded, placing my hands on my hips. "I told him to. Now the tesseract was destroyed with Hela during Ragnarok."

"When should we be prepared for this purple Titan?" Wanda asked, frowning at me.

I shrugged, "I don't know. Springtime?"

Pietro tapped my shoulder to get my attention. "It is springtime."

"Yeah," I snorted, "In Australia maybe."

They all looked at me for a moment in silence before Tony spoke up. "Lincoln, it's April."

I looked back at him with a furrowed brow. "I thought it was September. I've only been gone two weeks? When did-"

The memory hit me like a truck and I felt my face fall when I thought back to what Topaz had said beside the Grandmaster during his parties. The wormholes had fucked with time plenty while I was there. One of the many reasons why Sakaar was on my shit list.

"Oh," I shook my head. "I'm…sorry. I didn't until it was too late. Really. I didn't mean to stress you out. If I could've come back, I would've."

Natasha tilted her head a little. "You couldn't come back in all that time?"

I looked away, ignoring the question. "Now I'm thinking about the kid. Is Peter okay?"

"He's fine." Tony said, moving in too with Pietro wrapping a hand around my arm.

"When do you have to leave again?"

"Uh," I winced, patting around my sides for a watch and instead having a tarot card flip into my hand on it's own. "Kevin knows, I guess."

I flipped the card over to look at it. Already I was confused about how he was so insistent to give me information that he couldn't handle waiting for me to shuffle the deck. On the card was a very clearly depicted image of Thanos himself half a cloud. Below him was a dirt ground with hands reaching out from under graves. It was morbid for sure and I took a shaky breath before putting it back.

'Judgment'

"Okay, I'm gonna head back now." I muttered, sliding it back into the case on my hip that, much like Strange's cape, never left my side these days. "I gotta make sure this guy doesn't think we have something we don't."

"Should we be prepared for 'this guy'," Tony asked next while Pietro kept his hand on my arm. "You said we might have to fight him."

"Not until-" I waved a hand. "Later I think. I don't know. I can't predict the timing of everything. You're fine though. Everything is fine. I'll figure this out. I just need to grab my journal…"

I made a portal with Pietro clinging to me and collected the diary before waving at Wong again. "Hi."

He just raised a single hand to wave back.

"Tell Strange I'm gonna kill him when I see him next." I pointed at him. "I know he probably didn't know what he was doing. But he's a dick and I'm gonna make sure he knows it."

"What's new?" Wong grunted back, looking back down at his book and letting me close the portal again.

"You're upset with Strange?" Steve asked as I finally pried Pietro off me again and backed up.

"I gotta go." I shook my head, starting a new portal. "I missed you guys. I'll see you again soon, yeah? Shouldn't be so long this time."

"You recovered fast." Tony commented with a scoff. "What happened to being happy to see me?"

"Sometimes it's okay to bottle up emotions for the moment." I recited back to him, remembering the Ancient One's words to me. "This is difficult work and it can be stressful. However, sitting down and crying while people suffer is not something anyone wants to do. There will be plenty of time to process la- TC!"

I grinned when my friend came sauntering into the room.

Pietro stepped back away from him quickly and almost backed right into Steve. "What is that?!"

"Oh, he's angry." Wanda muttered with an amused smile, looking up at me. "He doesn't like that you left him."

"You understand him too?" I dropped down to pick him up and also got the same vibe off him. "That's so weird."

"He has a lot of choice words too." She smiled at him. "He says that the next time you plan on fighting the undead, he would prefer that you don't try to protect him. He is far stronger than you could ever know."

"He talks?" Steve grimaced at the lizard and I could just tell my best friend was amused.

"You must have seen Bruce." Natasha chimed in suddenly.

"Ah, spoilers," I pointed at her, and stepped back into my portal with my lizard over my shoulders. "That's my cue."

"Lincoln," Wanda raised a hand to stop me briefly. "I will be in Scotland with Vision again soon. Should I stay here?"

I shook my head, knowing that she was supposed to fight the children of Thanos there. "Nah, that's…fine. I just might need you in Wakanda at some point. I can portal you there though."

"Alright." She smiled at that. "Thank you."

I pointed at Tony next and gave him a serious look. "Hey, do not let Peter go to space. He doesn't need any more stress in his life."

I shut the portal before Tony could respond and looked at the friend on my shoulders. He just hummed proudly to himself, resting his head down.

"Oh yeah," I rolled my eyes. "You can stay. Don't think I won't launch you back to Earth though as soon as trouble comes up again."

I could practically hear the sass he was giving me in his head. That bond the Ancient One set up for me with him all those years ago was probably the best thing I could've ever asked for. Who knew Bearded Dragons from the pet store were so aware?

The ship had no immediate problems that I could see as I wandered down the long halls and tried to look for wherever Thor was leading this ship of refugees. I didn't run into Loki, but I did run into a lady I was very hesitant to approach right away. Instead, I just stopped in my tracks and gave her a hesitant look from the hall. She was seated inside an open room at a table with a book.

After a moment of me staring, Lissa looked up with just her eyes before flipping the book page. "I was not hurting you, Lincoln. I was saving your life."

"Didn't feel like it." I bit my lip, getting confused from TC when she looked up fully.

"You are still alive now." Lissa's mouth turned up in a small smile. "That's quite the companion you have."

"Oh, yeah," I reached a hand back to pet his head while a few Asgardian women passed by behind me with friendly smiles that barely covered that devastation in their eyes. "Thanks, I guess. For not letting me die."

"It's what I do." She nodded me along. "I'm sure Loki would like to see that you are doing well too. He's been nothing but bothersome over your health ever since we left."

"You don't seem so broken up about Asgard." I brought up, ignoring her quip about Loki. "I mean, everyone else has this sort of sad look in their eyes. You just look…fine."

"I've had my fair share of destruction." She waved me along with a hand then. "The hint was for you to leave me be."

"Right." I turned to keep walking. "Got it. Thank you though."

She kept a small smile as I walked away. "My pleasure."

I waved off TC's confusion then too with a quieter voice. "I don't know either, dude. We need to just find Thor."

It may have taken quite a few wrong turns and then finally asking for help from one of the people walking around before I learned that there were actually multiple floors in this thing. I had to go up two in order to find the cockpit. The room, of course, was quite long and filled with all sorts of weird computers and technology that I didn't even want to try to understand. At the end of it and in front of a big windshield, Thor was standing around with a few other people, Heimdall included.

Luckily, he wasn't sending distress signals at all or detecting anyone nearby, so I figured it was safe to leave it all alone while I wondered if it was even possible to make a portal big enough for this massive ship to go through. If I could do that, I'd just send us all there right away. The last portal I made for the party ship was kind of pushing it already though. I'm not some sorcerer supreme, alright? I have some tarot cards and some cool earrings that talk to me sometimes.

I went and settled down with my journal while the ship's light's dimmed to indicate a regular day cycle coming to an end. Loki was still out while I sat myself on my bed and worked through some plans for the future. The main problem so far was that Kevin told me Thanos was still coming. I didn't know how that was possible without the space stone.

"You left the tesseract." I gave Loki a serious look while he laid back on his own bed.

"Yes," He rolled his eyes. "Regrettably."

"Maybe it survived?" I scratched the back of my head. "That wouldn't be good."

"Yes, a cube in the middle of space poses a great danger to us all." Loki snipped back sarcastically. "Do you have any idea how massive space is? And how fast the tesseract could be moving? You'd have to be incredibly lucky to even see it pass by a million miles away."

"I'm just saying." I flipped a page to start a new possible chain of events. "Thank you for leaving it anyhow. Even if someone gets it, they won't be looking here for it. So at the very least, we've spared your people from bitchy aliens."

"Who are we keeping it from?"

"Spoilers," I mumbled back, starting to list ideas for how I could get all the people to earth faster.

I could make a few portals and just have them all walk through in a single file line, but that might get tedious and who's to say they're just going to listen. Thor, of course, could help with that plan. I did like that one the most and made some plans the next day with him about it. Barely three people made it through before the whole ship shook and groaned as if it had been shoved and Thor sprinted for the control room.

"Boss, we have a visitor on the roof."

Tony sat up in his chair and pulled up the cameras on his computer immediately. "Who?"

"I can't identify her from any of my databases. She seems to be tampering with a suit though."

"Of course." He groaned, zooming in on the person and rolling his eyes when he saw who it was. "Great. More kids."

He was up then and pulled on a sweatshirt before taking the elevator to the roof to see her. Shuri sat herself in front of Lincoln's nano-tech suit and had it laid across her lap with two empty canisters beside her.

"What are you doing?" He demanded, making her jump and then sigh when she saw him. "Do I need to call your brother to come get you again?"

"You don't need to call anyone, Stark." She huffed, typing away on her computer. "I am here for good reasons."

"Yeah? Like fucking with my technology?" He crouched down across from her. "You know I can just change it back when you leave. I'll find out what you did to it."

She smiled back condescendingly. "No you won't."

He smiled a little at that before shaking his head. "Look, I might be a bit soft after all these years chasing my kid down, but I think we both know that this defiance is better used at home. Let's go. Quit messing with stuff."

She put on an innocent face and smile. "Please? You can see after I am done. I am making adjustments that could save her life."

Tony pointed at the empty canisters. "What were these?"

"Energy drinks." She looked back at her computer. "Thank you."

"Hm." He watched her for a moment longer. "I'm calling your brother anyways."

"Nooo!" She laughed, "Please? I am going right home after!"

"He should know that you're causing trouble." Tony stood up then and pulled out his phone. "What time is it there?"

"About midnight." She lied, typing furiously away at her computer. "I would not call. He'll be angry with you."

"Yeah?" Tony picked up the phone to his ear and turned to pace with it when T'Challa picked up the phone. "Hey, I found your sister on my roof."

There was a pause of silence on the other end while Tony paced in the gravel.

"Ah, I only just left her lab." T'Challa replied hesitantly. "Are you positive it's her?"

"I'm looking right at her." Tony turned to look at where the kid was, only to see that she had disappeared with the suit back in its pod shape already. "Uh…was."

"Sister." T'Challa sounded like he was walking with the echo. "I am looking at her. Might I suggest that you don't remember what she looks like?"

"It's been a year." Tony turned in a full circle, looking around for the girl. "Are you sure she doesn't have any…weird new inventions? Teleportation?"

T'Challa chuckled at that. "No, I believe I would have heard of that."

"Okay, well," Tony patted his pockets for Edith, only to remember that he left her downstairs for maintenance. "She was just here messing with my suit."

"Stark." Shuri's voice came over the phone with a laugh. "I would check your eyes. I have not been anywhere but here since last month."

"I just saw you, you little shit." He tapped the top of Lincoln's suit then and pulled up a screen to test it for any new programs. "Don't lie to me. What did you do to Lincoln's suit? There's a new program here, but I don't know what it does."

"I have no idea either." She sniggered, "Perhaps you are working through your sleep."

"Just tell me what it is, okay?" Tony tried not to get too annoyed with her while he tried to remove the program. "I'm not gonna be pissy. Maybe I'll let it stay. Just tell me what crap you're writing into my kid's suit."

"I really do not know." She replied more honestly this time. "I don't think that was me that you saw. If you would like help modifying though, you only had to ask."

"I don't need any help." He sent the info back down to his computer with a sigh. "Fine. But if I find out it's some sort of bad reference or joke, I'm never sending you AI codes ever again."

"Do not punish me for something I had nothing to do with!"

"Don't mess with my suits." Tony retorted, smiling a little to himself. "Cool trick though. Two places at once. Don't tell me you've been in touch with wizards."

"What wizards?"

Tony shook his head at the blatant lie and hung up the phone before turning to walk back to the elevator. He didn't miss the small spark of purple that snapped off the suit either, but brushed it off as residual energy from when Lincoln tested it out that one time.

The amount of kids on his radar was really starting to get ridiculous too. He couldn't possibly be responsible for every last super-kid that appeared out of the blue. At this rate, he was just lucky that Clint finally stopped bitching about Pietro and Wanda following him home for the holidays. Now he just complained that they never visited often enough and that Laura missed them when the twins spent too much time at the compound.