"The most desolate place on Earth is the south pole," Dr. Strange explained, "hundreds of miles away from any and all civilizations, it's perfect. It's also one of the coldest places in the world, so, bundle up." He magically covered himself head to toe with warm clothing to prepare, and had Steve and Tony do the same.
"All will be well for me," Thor said, "it can't be colder than Jotunheim."
Dr. Strange created a portal directly to the south pole, and they were off to the blistering land of ice and snow.
Thor took the tesseract and said, "I'm going to attempt to teleport myself over there," he pointed to a massive black rock through the wind blowing snow everywhere a great distance away. It couldn't have been a full mile.
"Stay behind me," Dr. Strange said, preparing a magic shield to cover Tony and Steve.
Thor moved far away from them and held the tesseract in front of himself. He pretended it was the real deal and attempted to use it to teleport himself over to the massive rock when he was ready.
BOOM!
Blue light in the form of energy exploded in every direction! The ground was knocked out from under all their feet, and they fell deep into the crater Thor just created. The wind kicked up and powerful storm and blew snow and ice everywhere.
As they rolled across the newly exposed rocks, Tony said sarcastically, "Wow doc, that shield of yours worked a treat." He moaned as he felt the delayed impact of the explosion hit him all at once. "Ow."
"Is everyone alright?" Steve asked, getting up to his feet too easy for Tony's comfort.
They looked over to see Thor smashed flat against the ground, the tesseract still in his hands. "Thor?" Dr. Strange called out anxiously hoping he hadn't died.
"I'm alright!" he shouted back.
Steve helped Tony to his feet, and they regrouped with Thor in the very center of the crater. Tony said, "Clearly that didn't work. Now what? Any ideas?" He looked up to see the crater they were now in had to be close to a mile wide and nearly as deep in the black rocks.
Thor said, "I have a feeling this was supposed to happen. I wonder if Loki put a spell on this, making it so only he could use it." They all knew that sounded like something Loki would do.
Steve said, "If that's the case, he's probably planning something nefarious with it."
"Oh, he's never going to tell us what his plans are," Tony said angrily, "and since he won't, doing all of this was a huge waste of time."
"Fret not," Thor said calmly, "I have a contingency plan for such a thing. However, I'm going to need all of you to follow along very carefully. Can I trust you to help me make this work?" They all nodded, knowing the fate of the universe was at stake.
Dr. Strange portaled them back to the sanctum, and quickly ditched all their winter clothing. While the spears were still littered across the floor, Loki was no longer lying face down in the middle of the hallway. "Oh great," Tony said, already sick of his antics, "Where did he go this time?"
"It's only been 20 minutes," Thor said, "he can't have gotten far. He'll still be half asleep."
They split up to search the building, only to find Loki in the next small room over. He sat at a table, slumped over, head down, in his folded arms. Thor got to him first and grabbed him by the hair to pull him upright to see his face.
Half asleep, Loki pulled away from him and forced his eyes open to see his surroundings. Tony asked, "Have a good nap, Skrillex?"
"I can't believe you baked magic sedatives into chocolate," Loki said, looking at Thor standing beside him, "You never bake sedatives into food, it always turns it sour! You always dissolve them in fluid! Did Idunn not tell you that?"
"She mentioned something along those lines," Thor confessed, " yes, but I knew you'd never go for it."
Loki asked, "Did the tesseract at least work, or did you drug me for nothing?" He rubbed his head against the bright lights, still wishing he was asleep.
"No," he replied, "it did not." He pulled another individually wrapped chocolate square out of his pocket.
He scoffed, "As if I'd fall for the same trick within the same hour."
"Anyone wish to try one for themselves?" Thor asked, "I can assure you there aren't any sedatives in these ones. Idunn, the Goddess of Spring and gardening in general, is the best chef in all of New Asgard. Try one!"
Tony reached his hand out first, "I'll take one." Steve and Dr. Strange each grabbed a square for themselves as well, thanking him as they opened them up and ate them right in front of Loki.
He finally conceded and took one from Thor himself. Still, he hesitated after opening it. He broke it in half and gave half of it to Thor. Thor gladly took the half from him and ate it without a problem. "Mmmmm," Thor said, "it's delicious, try it!" Only then did Loki finally eat his half. This time there was no horrendous sour taste attached.
"Not bad," he said.
When Loki stood up out of the chair and officially shook the tiredness off, Thor asked, "Brother, do you have any nefarious purposes planned if we ever managed to recollect all six infinity stones?"
"No I wish only for Thanos to be killed for torturing me and murdering so many of our people," he answered, then quickly drew his knife against Thor, only for him to expect it and hold his wrist before he could stab him in the gut. "An honesty spell?" Loki asked, felling betrayed, "Seriously? Do enjoy tormenting me, brother?"
"No, I dislike having to stoop so low," Thor answered honestly, "I wouldn't have to resort to such underhanded tactics if you weren't such a devious little shit!"
Loki withdrew his knife and said, "Well at least you have to be truthful now too."
"We all do now," he confessed, "the chocolates all of them ate also had an honesty spell baked into them."
"All of you ate one?" Loki turned to stare at them standing around the table, they all had the same unamused looks on their faces.
Dr. Strange asked, "And how long does this spell last, Thor?"
"An Earth moon cycle," he answered nonchalantly, as if it weren't such a bad thing, "28 days total."
They gasped and nearly fell over from shock. Tony shouted, "We're stuck like this for an entire month?! Tell me you're joking!"
"What the hell, Thor?!" Steve said angrily.
"I didn't sign up for this," Dr. Strange said hastily.
Shocked, Loki asked, "You didn't tell them before you made them eat the spell? Now that's diabolical. What a dirty trick! I'm so proud of you. Looks like I've rubbed off on you, brother." He patted Thor on the shoulder.
Thor moved away from him, "It was the only way to get the truth out of you."
"So, we can't lie at all for the next 4 weeks starting now?" Steve asked, horrified at the implications.
"Actually, it's more complicated than that," Loki explained, "spells lose their potency when they're baked into something. We can still lie, however when someone asks a question, not only will we answer no matter what-including rhetorical questions-we will also answer truthfully." He paused, "Although, none of you have any experience in evading spells cast directly on you. The next several weeks are going to be a quite a dramatic ride for the lot of you, filled with oversharing even with no question pending." He gave them a wide smile. "This is going to be fun."
Steve shook his head and said, "Don't look at me like that, it's freaking me out."
Tony asked, "What's going to happen to us if we try to lie?"
"Your mind is currently unable to come up with a lie," Loki answered, "it will only be able to speak the truth."
"Let me try this," Tony insisted, "someone get me a pen." He grabbed one off of a shelf behind him. He stared at it and said, "The color of this pen is blue." He paused. "I can't think of any other color besides blue. Someone think of a color!"
Thor, Dr. Strange, and Steve all said, "Blue," in unison.
"Well, that's going to get old fast," Tony said, setting the pen back down.
Dr. Strange said, "I guess you're not Jim Carrey."
"I'm not," Tony said quickly, "I'm Tony Stark, formerly known as Ironman." He paused awkwardly and said, "Well that was weird."
Loki said, "As I said, you will only be able to think and speak the truth. No deceptions allowed."
Thor asked, "Loki, did you put a spell on the tesseract to make it so only you can use it?"
"No," he answered.
Tony threw his hands up, sick of his nonsense, and said, "Okay then, going out of our way to eat a truth spell was a complete waste of our time. Not only that, but you can still slither around the truth like the slithery little snake that you are."
"Oh, I love snakes," Loki replied, "thank you for such a kind metaphor."
"Even Loki in all his little tricks much still answer the truth when asked a question," Thor said, "Loki, the power of this thing exploded in our faces and left a crater a mile wide when I attempted to use it to teleport myself. Something isn't adding up here. What did you do to it?"
"I don't know what the problem is," he said, "I've never tested it myself. Have you attempted to create a portal with it yet? Those are known to be more stable than using it to teleport yourself to a specific location."
"No but since it exploded so terribly mere moments ago, I'm not excited to try it out again so soon," Thor said.
Dr. Strange asked, "How do we build a portal?"
Loki answered, "The most stable manner for it be done is with the machine I built when I brought the Chitari to Earth several years ago."
The men all stared at each other. Steve asked, "Well where is it now?"
"I don't know," Thor, Loki, and Dr. Strange answered in unison, all cringing.
Thor clarified, "It's the spell that made us just do that. Loki, how did you build the machine before?"
"You know the man who did it," Loki said, "Dr. Erik Selvig."
Dr. Strange said, "If I have an address I can portal us all directly to him and perhaps he'll be willing us to help save the world."
"If he wasn't dusted," Thor said, "I wrote his address down in the library of New Asgard when we were first settling in last year. All I have to do is retrieve it. Loki, I'll need parchment, ink, a quill, and an arrow."
As Loki conjured them onto the table, he said, "I conjured the supplies, I want to write the note."
"Very well then," he replied, "make haste."
Steve asked, "What are you doing?"
"We'll use a magical arrow to launch it across the sky directly to New Asgard and they'll send us Selvig's address back the same way," Thor answered.
"Need a roof?" Dr. Strange asked. He created a portal behind them directly to the roof of the sanctum.
Loki finished writing the note and stepped out onto the roof. He conjured a massive bow, one the length of his body, and set the arrow in it. "Bless me with the eyes of Heimdall and let my arrow soar to my target," he commanded. His eyes turned golden, like Heimdall's, and with his magic saw across the ocean to New Asgard.
He released his arrow and watched it fly directly to Baldur's heart. Baldur looked up, annoyed, and shouted, "Loki!"
"Yes!" Loki cheered, "Got him!"
"Who did you send it to?" Thor asked.
"I sent the arrow directly through Baldur's heart," Loki answered, smiling. His brother frowned at him disapprovingly.
Steve asked, "And that didn't kill him?"
"He has a spell cast on him that makes it so only mistletoe can harm him," Thor explained, "you don't want to know why, it's complicated."
It only took a moment for another golden arrow to be sent directly at them. Loki caught it in midair with only inches to spare before it reached his heart. "Ha!" he shouted, "You missed!"
Across the ocean, Baldur stood, defeated as he watched. "Dammit!"
Loki made the bow and arrow disappear and opened up the parchment scroll up. "Here," he said, presenting it to Dr. Strange, "one address for a Dr. Erik Selvig."
He stared at the old Norse runes it was written in and said, "That's not in English, Latin, or Sanskrit so I can't read it." With a translation spell, Loki switched it over to Latin. Dr. Strange stared at it and asked, "You know Latin?"
"Ego Romae humanitatem luculentam," Loki replied. (I concur humanity peaked in Rome.)
Thor said, "Constat." (Agreed.)
Tony asked in disbelief, "You all know Latin? You know that's a dead language, right? There's no reason to speak it."
"It wasn't always a dead language," Loki said.
"Alright," Dr. Strange said, "let's go talk to this Dr. Selvig."
Thor was the first to walk through the hallway to the apartment building in Norway, directly to the number on the door they knew was Erik's. Hr stepped up to it first. Just before he knocked, he turned and said, "Stay behind me out of sight." He forced Loki to move in behind him by the shoulders.
"As you wish," he replied.
Dr. Strange closed up the portal and the rest of them waited off to the side while Thor knocked.
"Thor?" Erik asked as he opened the door, "What are you doing here?"
Thor stepped over the threshold as he was welcomed inside and said, "I have a task for you, Selvig, and I hope you're up for it because the fate of the universe rests in your answer." As he walked inside, Loki remained where he stood.
Erik turned and screamed in horror at the mere sight of him. He ran and grabbed a gun out of his cabinet and pointed it directly at Loki. "Hello again, Erik," Loki said calmly, smiling, "don't bother with that, as if that thing is going to do anything to me."
"I told you to stay behind me," Thor said hastily.
"I am still behind you, brother," Loki replied, finally stepping inside.
Erik exclaimed, "You told me he was dead!"
"He faked his death," Thor explained as calmly as he could, "let's put down the gun and try to relax, alright? I'm not going to let him hurt you, or get inside your head again. I promise." He helped him lower the gun.
"Funny," Tony said, stepping inside, "I thought they didn't have guns in Europe."
Erik put it again and said, "We have them, they're just harder to get. Did you bring everybody with you this time or what?" They quickly crowded around in his small apartment kitchen.
Dr. Strange extended his hand, "Hello, Dr. Erik Selvig, I'm Doctor Stephan Strange. Nice to meet you." They shook hands respectively.
"You're also a Stephan?" Tony asked, glancing at him and Steve.
"Yeah," he snarked, "what did you think, my first name was 'doctor?'"
Tony said quickly, "No I didn't think that at all." He cringed at his own awkwardness. "It's this damn spell, I swear."
"As nice as it is to meet all of you, I guess," Erik said anxiously, "what are you doing here?"
Thor explained, "As I said, I'm hoping you'll be able to help us with an important task. We may be able to bring everyone back with your help, and this." He turned and had Loki present the tesseract.
Erik screamed again and nearly ran out of the room. "I don't want to get anywhere near that thing ever again! I just stopped having nightmares about it!"
Thor tore it out of Loki's hands and said, "Selvig, it's okay! It's okay, take a deep breath! You're okay, you're alright. This isn't the real tesseract, it's a magical duplicate. It can't hurt you."
"I don't want to work for him again," Erik said, pointing at Loki who gave him an evil smile in return.
"Pretend he's not here," Thor insisted, "actually, pretend he didn't fake his death and is actually dead for real." He stepped between them and blocked Erik's view of Loki completely. "With this tesseract, we might be able to create a portal to the real infinity stones and undo what Thanos did to us last year. You must have lost some people when he snapped his fingers."
He answered, "Jane Foster, some cousins, and a few neighbors."
Steve said, "So you understand what we're asking you."
"Yes," Thor continued, "all we need you to do is build the same machine you built for Loki back when he had you under his control. It's possible this may work out for everyone. What do you say?"
Erik hesitated, more so out of bewilderment rather than confusion. "As much as I would be completely thrilled to relive that nightmare," he said, "what do you expect me to do here? I can't pull the equipment out of my ass and build it here in this apartment." He gestured to his tiny space.
"If it's equipment you need, say the word and I'll buy it for you," Tony said, "anything."
"Actually," he added, "Stark Industries confiscated everything I built years ago. You probably have it stuffed in a warehouse somewhere."
"And the government confiscated the majority of my assets last year when we were deemed as failures," Tony said, then paused as he remembered something, "but I know where they put it! Area 51! That's where America has stored alien technology for decades. It has to be there."
Dr. Strange said, "Makes sense."
Tony said, "Well then let's go and bust up the place and find our stuff!"
"No," Steve said, "that's a bad idea, Tony. Superheros are already in a bad light, if the government finds out that Ironman and Captain America are breaking into military bases, it's only going to make us look worse for us. We don't know if our plan is going to work. If it doesn't it'll just be another hot mess for us to clean up after ourselves. There's too much riding on this."
Tony scoffed and asked, "You care about your image more than the welfare of humanity? Since when?"
"Since we were all this close to being put on death row last year," he answered, "this is not the time to mess around, Tony."
Thor said, "I concur. For once I believe a clandestine approach is in order."
They all turned to look at Loki, who had plopped himself onto the counter, and had his hands deep inside a box of granola bars. With his mouth stuffed with food, he gave them all a blank look.
"Hello," Tony said, "mister mischievous over there, are you paying attention to us at all or what?"
Loki swallowed and replied, "No, I wasn't listening because I was told I'm dead."
Thor angrily ripped the granola bar box out of his hands and threw it across the counter angrily. Loki recoiled at the sudden violence.
Tony groaned and asked, "Well, are you going to transform all of us into soldiers to march into Area 51 so we can build a portal with this fake tesseract, or what?"
"No," Loki replied, jumping off the counter, "because that is a terrible idea. Firstly, self-transformation spells are the hardest level of magic there is because you can't merely transform, you must play the part. If you can't, the illusion breaks and then they'll see through it. Secondly, we all have truth spells cast on us so even if we do somehow make believable soldiers, the moment someone asks, 'who are you and what are you doing here,' we'll all tell the truth, rendering the whole endeavor moot. None of you know how to act, nor can you evade the spell cast on you. So no, I refuse."
"He's not wrong," Dr. Strange said, "but if we get a map of the facility somehow, I'll be able to portal us around the different warehouses without being seen and we'll be able to find it eventually-if it's there."
Erik said, "Yeah because that'll be easy to find, a map of a top-secret government facility."
Loki said, "I can get us a map. I'll grab one of the guard's memories and hopefully they'll have a decent enough sense of direction that I can map out the area with his memories of walking and driving around the place."
Steve said, "We don't all need to be there. I'll help Erik clear out a workplace in the avenger's headquarters while you four go and find the equipment you need. Got it?" Everyone but Erik nodded in agreement. Instead, he stood there looking more anxious than ever.
Once they split up, Loki cast a spell on them to make it so none of them could be seen or heard by anyone else. Dr. Strange portaled them to the outer gate of Area 51 in Nevada. The desert heat and sun struck them hard.
"Alright," Thor said, pulling Loki in close, "you're up now, brother. Go."
Loki pulled away from him and turned to get a closer look at the guard standing within the small outbuilding next to the gate. "Oh, he's hot," he said, "this'll be easy."
"Then make haste!" Thor insisted.
"Show me your type," Loki outstretched his arm and suddenly transformed into a man decked out in all black leather, short black hair, sunglasses, and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm.
Tony asked, "You can tell what someone's type is? What if they don't have one?"
Loki replied, "Please, even asexuals can tell when someone is attractive." With his magic, he created an illusion of himself riding a motorcycle from the highway in the distance. He stopped it before the gate and pretended to get off of the bike and take his helmet off for the guard who stared at him in awe.
As he flirted with the startled guard, Dr. Strange, Tony, and Thor stood in the distance off to the side, invisibly waiting.
"So your brother's gay then?" Dr. Strange asked.
Tony answered, "He can't be, he likes some hot Goddess chick over in New Asgard, he has to be bi."
"Oh, as if Loki could ever be so straightforward," Thor explained, "if there were a horse in our path, he'd find a way to seduce it to get what he wants."
Their jaws dropped. Tony asked, "A horse?" Thor nodded.
"Has he ever had to-never mind!" Dr. Strange said, grossing himself out with the implication alone, "Don't answer that! I don't want to know."
Before they knew it, Loki stepped away from the guard and made his illusion ride off toward the horizon. He transformed back into him and created a parchment of a map of the facility. "Ta da," he said, "easy."
"Alright," Tony said, "let's do this."
Dr. Strange created portals starting towards the front of the facility first. As they stepped through it, Loki stopped them and said, "I have no spells for avoiding cameras. Do you, Strange?" He pointed to the security camera aimed away from them in the corner.
"No," he answered.
"Leave that to me," Tony said, "let me just boot up Friday and we'll be good to go." He brought out the only remaining nanotech suit he had after the government confiscated all the others and put the cameras on a loop so they wouldn't be seen.
With that taken care of, their search finally began. From one warehouse to another, and then another, and another. There appeared to be endless rooms where hundreds of boxes stood in all shapes and sizes and needed to be searched through. It felt as though they had opened and resealed more than a hundred boxes and crates.
By the last room, hours later, they were all sick of opening crates in the dark. Loki leaned over a tall box; his eyelids heavy.
"What are you doing?" Dr. Strange asked, coming up from behind him.
"Attempting to thwart sleep," Loki answered, lifting his head up and struggling to keep his eyes open.
He asked, "Opening boxes makes you tired? I thought since you call yourself a God you'd have some sort of enhanced endurance or whatever. Shouldn't this be nothing to you?" He gestured to the space they were in.
With the truth spell working its magic, Loki confessed, "My tiredness does not come from this. I haven't slept in over a year. It's complicated, the older we Gods get, the less sleep we require. I still need to sleep for a day or so every 6 months, give or take. Odin could go more than 500 years without even taking so much as a nap." He sighed. "I can't wait for that to happen for me."
Dr. Strange looked him over in the dark and asked, "I know now isn't a great time, but why don't you just sleep when you get the chance?"
Loki shook his head. "Every time I close my eyes, all I see is Asgard in ruins," he said, "I have no wish to go back and witness that again, especially not in my own nightmares where I can't escape." He leaned against a box again and tried to keep his eyes open.
"Hey, I think I found it!" Tony announced from the other side of the room. "Is this it?"
Thor looked down at the box and said, "It is."
"Good," Dr. Strange said, walking over to them, "I just hope this plan works."