Steve and Erik had cleared a space in the warehouse at the back of the avengers headquarters for the machine to be brought in. From there, it was determined Steve would collect the others living avengers, Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Bucky. While Tony would help Erik rebuild the machine to work again-this time instead of aimed at the sky, it would aim across the room. Dr. Strange would go take care of the sanctum. Thor and Loki decided to stick around and put in a large table with chairs off to the side them working, next to the wall of windows overlooking the estate.
"I for on, did not expect this to be so boring," Thor said, sitting at the table.
Tony said, tightening screws at the back of the machine across the room, "No one asked a question, Thor."
Thor stood up and said, "Well I'll go grab a quick bite to eat and be right back then, since I'm unneeded here."
As Thor left for the kitchen, Loki said, "Erik, you moved so much quicker before. It's been hours already, what takes so long this time around?" He curled up in the chair he sat in at the end of the table. His eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, and no matter how hard he tried, refused to stay open.
Meanwhile, from under the machine, Erik explained, "Well for starters, I'm not being brainwashed to work 50 hours straight with no rest, no food, no water, and barely any bathroom breaks this time."
"You could do something to help, your spoiled highness," Tony snarked.
"He sat on his ass and did nothing to help last time also," Erik said, "and kept communicating to some alien telepathically. I wouldn't expect much to change this time around."
Tony confessed, "I will admit this is taking longer than I initially thought. At this rate we'll be done by..." he hesitated and made a long exasperated sigh and a deep breath before he said, "Lokisday."
Erik stood up out from under the machine to face him and asked, "Excuse me?"
Tony explained painfully, "You know, the day after Friday, but also before Sunday. That day." He held he head in his hands, cringing at himself.
Erik gave him and incredulous look. "You mean Saturday?"
"Yeah, that's the one," he replied.
"What did you just call it?" Erik asked.
"Lokisday," he answered sadly, "it's a spell, alright? Don't ask, trust me, you don't want to know."
Erik stared at him and said, "Well Saturday morning does sound about right, maybe noon at the latest with the rate we're going. It'll take a while, but hopefully this'll all work out in the end."
As he went back to work, Tony finished up the screws he was working on and listened for Loki's retort at their conversation from across the room. When none came, he asked, "You don't have anything smart to say about that, annoying trickster God over there?" Silence. Tony asked Erik, "Did he leave?"
"He's still sitting over there," he answered, looking over to see Loki still sitting at the table.
"So, he decided to finally shut the hell up then," Tony snarked, "good."
Erik said, "Actually, it looks like he's asleep."
"What?" Tony bolted out from behind the machine and to peer out to see the sight for himself. He couldn't believe after all the trouble he caused, Loki had simply fallen asleep.
Tony marched over to him angrily, but Thor came back in time to intercept his path. "Let him rest, Stark."
"After everything he's put us through?!" Tony shouted, "I don't think so! Especially after he kept us all up all night last year and caused Wanda to go off on her own. No way!" He attempted to push away from him, but his strength was worthless against Thor's.
Thor explained calmly, "I know he's annoying and he's been trying all our last nerves, but he's been delaying sleep for a year now no matter how hard I've tried to convince him otherwise. Perhaps when he wakes, he'll be less irritating to us all."
Horrified, Erik asked, "A whole year?" Thor nodded.
Tony asked, "How long will he be out?"
"Most likely a few days," he answered, "considering how long it's been since he's slept for real."
"All I ask is for a marker," Tony said.
"A marker?" Thor asked.
"If you won't let me wake him up, I at least want to be able to draw on his face," he confessed. Thor shook his head in disappointment.
Erik asked, "What are you, a college frat boy?"
"Actually I never joined a fraternity," Tony answered quickly, then stopped himself and hung his head in shame.
"It was rhetorical," Erik said, walking away from the group.
"I know that," he replied, "it's another spell. You don't want to know, trust me."
Thor asked, "Do you wish for Loki to wake up pissed off? Because he won't be happy to awaken with a marked-up face."
Tony walked away and sulked, "No."
Thor turned and picked Loki up and carried him in a bridal style over to the couch that had been left off to the side in the warehouse. "Well brother," Thor said, "let's see what you finally get to dream of." He used a spell to look inside Loki's dreams.
The scene changed to Asgard's throne room, scores of Asgardians cheering and screaming excitedly as Loki walked up to the throne, draped in royal garb and holding Mjolnir.
"Of course, you'd dream of this," Thor said, standing behind him.
"Hey," Loki said, turning around, offended, "I don't go inside your head and mock your dreams." He handed Thor his hammer, only to watch it drop to the ground, unable to pick it up. He couldn't help but laugh in his brother's face.
Thor replied, "Very funny. Is this what you've been avoiding all this time? To see yourself like this?" He gestured to the enthusiastic crowds of Asgard.
Loki confessed, "No." The room went silent and everyone disappeared, leaving an empty and barren throne room. "It always starts like this, but then it turns into a nightmare I can't stop."
The throne room suddenly transformed to the courtyards outside the palace, dead bodies strewn across the steps and the gardens. Hogan's corpse bled in the middle of the hoards. Loki explained sadly, "I saw the carnage Hela caused as I flew to the vault to summon Surter."
"I thought you were never one for sentiment," Thor said. He too grimaced at the sheer number of the dead and his friend's body.
"I am not," he explained, "but when we left Asgard to search for our father on Midgard, I never thought it would be the last time I'd see this place in all its glory." He looked up at the perfect sky and then back down at the devastation. "She slaughtered them all for no reason," he added, "which is heinous enough on its own, she then left their bodies out to rot, not even honoring their sacrifices."
Thor said, "I know of someone else who did the same thing to a city on Midgard a few years ago." Loki turned and glared at him. "Do I lie?"
"No you speak the truth," he said, "but I've never killed any of our own people just to get what I want and attain more power. I am different from Hela. The worse I did to them was lock them in the dungen for a few months at a time when they didn't like my plays or questioned my actions."
Darkness suddenly covered the sky and Thanos' ship appeared out of nowhere, blocking out the sun. As they looked up to see it, Loki said, "Whenever I dream, this is always how it ends."
"This is not real, Loki," Thor tried to assure him, "this is a nightmare you can change."
"It was real," he said hastily, "it happened to Asgard and us for real, Thor. We were minding our own business, looking forward to a future together, when he showed up and ruined everything! We killed him! He was dead! Yet even death wasn't enough to stop him from winning!" He pointed to the sky.
Thor said, "That is why you built the tesseract, brother. That is why we are at the avenger's headquarters, now, with the hope that we can undo the massacre he caused. We have hope."
They turned to the sky and watched as Thanos rained fire on Asgard. Although this didn't happen to them, they still felt the impacts and watched as their home burned and explode all around them.
"Look at us, Thor," Loki said, "with all my magic and all your lightning we were completely and utterly worthless against Thanos. What if the machine doesn't work? Then what? We sit in New Asgard forever, staring at the statues of the fallen we erected, and pretend all this never happened?" He gestured to the structures falling apart around them.
"If this doesn't work," Thor painfully confessed, "I don't know what we'll do. But if it does work, you'll be Loki, Crown Prince of New Asgard, rightful ruler of Jotunheim, savior of the universe. And even if you turn against me in the future in all your kniving ways, no one can ever take that away from you."
Loki smiled. "That introduction does have a nice ring to it."
They dodged more explosions and debris flying in every direction. Then, purple haze filled the air, and they froze in place. Pain overcame their bodies.
"What is this?" Thor asked, hardly able to breathe through the pain.
"The power stone prison Thanos trapped me in," he answered, "the pain was like no other." He grimaced as he tried to breathe.
Thor said, "I'm sorry he did this to you, Loki. You're not the only one who feels like a failure. I killed him too! I watched his head roll off to the side and his blood spill and then I turned around and was just so glad you were still alive. I was so relieved I didn't think to keep watching his body, and make sure he remained among the dead. I didn't even think to take the stones away from him."
"I'm the reason we failed," Loki said.
"No," he insisted, "I should have been more attentive. I'm the reason we failed, but you're the reason we have hope."
The explosions faded away, and the damage done to Asgard disappeared. The purple haze vanished and their pain was gone. Thanos' ship left, as if he had never been there to begin with. Everything was calm. Loki's nightmare was over.
"No more nightmares," Thor said, "look at this, now you can now rest."
"Yes, I can," Loki replied. He turned to him and said, "if I ever see him again I'll kill him for real. Now, get out of my head." He stabbed him in the gut. The pain Thor felt was real.
When he snapped out of Loki's dream, Thor found a knife in his stomach and Loki smiling in his sleep. "You little brat," Thor said, pulling the knife out of himself.
"I don't believe this," Clint said, standing over Loki as he slept on the couch, "he's outside of New Asgard without a problem-completely against his conditional pardon for being allowed to live here-and he's the reason we're all here with hope for the future...so we have to work with him. Incredible. I hate it."
Steve said, "We don't exactly have the luxury to exclude him."
From across the room, still working on the machine, Tony said, "I still vote we send him back to New Asgard in a box labeled 'fragile' so the guys in the airport know to be extra rough on him."
"I wouldn't mind," Natasha said, putting her hand up.
"Actually, I have some good news for you guys," Steve explained, "in order to get him to cooperate, Thor tricked him into eating some candy with a truth spell in it. Now if you ask him a question, he has to answer honestly."
Clint's eyes lit up. "I can ask him anything at all and he'll tell me the truth no matter what?" he asked, "Oh I can have some fun with that." He rubbed his hands together.
Thor walked over and said, "He's waking up."
"Good," Sam said, "I want to see how this all plays out."
They all watched as Loki slowly opened his eyes and examined his surroundings. He was surprised to see so many people standing around and staring back at the crowd now in the room. Sam, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Natasha, Thor, Tony, and Erik were now all gathered around the table. "How long have I been sleeping?" he asked, sitting up.
"Three days total," Thor answered.
Loki stood up and asked, "Well is that thing any closer to be ready now than it was three days ago?"
"Yes," Tony answered hastily, "just a few more pieces to put in place and it'll be all done and ready to test."
"So, Loki," Clint said as he watched him walk over to the table, "what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?"
Loki sat in a chair at the end of the table and replied, "I don't know."
Natasha asked, "What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know what a mortal like you qualifies as an embarrassing moment," he explained, calmly shrugging, "so I have no answer for your question."
Thor explained, "Your question is too broad, Barton. Even with a truth spell cast on him, he can still wiggle around it with ease."
Clint thought for a moment, wondering what kind of question would humiliate Loki the most in front of the entire group. He finally asked, "Loki, have you ever wet the bed?"
"Have I ever done what?" he asked, confused.
Sam explained, "He means have you ever peed the bed in your sleep?"
Loki looked them over, digusted at the thought of it, he answered, "No, never. Is that a difficulty you mortals have?"
"No," Steve answered, "only for some people under the age of 5 or so does it ever happen. Barton, where are you going with this?"
"I'm just trying something out, alright?" he replied, then turned back to Loki, "fine, Loki, what has happened to you, that you consider to be an embarrassing moment?"
He answered, "There was this one time when the light elves came to visit Asgard and I accidentally called them Bilgesnipe in front of the entire court. In my defense, I had just learned the name of both earlier that day and couldn't remember which was which. I was only in my 200s."
Thor laughed and said, "Yeah that was pretty funny!"
Everyone else stared at the two of them blankly. Natasha snarked, "That went well."
"Alright then," Clint said, not giving up yet, "what's the worst thing you've ever said to someone?"
"The last words I said to my mother before she died was claim she wasn't my mother," he said sadly, remembering how sad that day was, "I regret having said that to her."
"Barton," Steve said, "give it up. You're not going to out-trick him."
Tony shouted from across the room, "Alright everyone! This thing is finally ready to go! Someone call up the doc and get him over here so we can test this thing out. Let's get this show on the road!"
After a quick phone call, Dr. Strange portaled himself in and they were all ready for the test run. Thor asked, "How do we know this thing isn't going to blow up like it did before?"
"I'll put a containment spell on it," Loki said, walking up to the machine, "if it explodes, I'll hold it together."
"Wait," Tony said, "I think Thor should turn on the machine. I still don't trust Loki."
Thor stepped in front of Loki and said, "I'll do it."
Loki rolled his eyes and handed the tesseract over. "Just wish for a portal to be made directly to the real tesseract. If it works, it should take us to it."
Dr. Strange created a shield in front of everyone as Thor put the tesseract inside the machine. It activated, and blue energy burst out of it. Although powerful, it wasn't enough to knock anyone over. A massive blue beam shot out of it across the room and stopped short just before hitting a wall. Blue light enveloped the wall and created a giant portal large enough to walk through.
"Yep," Erik said anxiously, "that's what it looked like last time."
Bucky asked, "How do we know if it worked?"
"Someone must step through it and check to see what's on the other side," Loki answered.
They all awkwardly took nervous steps toward the massive glowing blue portal.
Tony said nervously, "If the space stone was launched somewhere in space, that means the vast void of the galaxy is in the other side of this glowing door portal, right?"
"That would be correct," Thor said, being the only one brave enough to get close to the portal while everyone stayed behind him.
Dr. Strange said, "Well we can't just stand here all day staring at this thing."
"I vote oldest goes first!" Loki said quickly, then kicked Thor's hip and chucked him through the portal as he screamed in fear.
"Loki!" Steve shouted in horror.
Loki moved in close and attempted to try and listen through the portal, checking to see if he could hear anything on the other side. Everyone else kept their distance. Natasha asked, "Well?"
He said, "I can't hear anything."
Arms suddenly reached through the portal and covered his face and chest, then dragged him through kicking and screaming the whole time. Everyone else screamed in horror and jumped back for their lives. Dr. Strange put up another sheild between them and the portal.
"Shut it down!" Tony yelled.
"No don't!" Steve said, "They'll be trapped inside!"
Thor jumped out and shouted, "Got ya! You guys should have seen your faces!" He burst out laughing.
"What was that, Thor!?" Sam shouted, still terrified.
"That was not funny!" Steve exclaimed, "We thought you were dead or dying!"
"I'm fine," Thor said, "it's fine. It's just New York."
They all looked at each other in confusion. Dr. Strange asked, "What do you mean it's just New York?"
"I mean it's New York," he reiterated, "come take a look and see for yourselves." He motioned for them to follow as he walked through the portal without a care in the world.
Dr. Strange followed him in first, and then Steve, Tony, Sam, Bucky, Clint, and Natasha, all one right after the other went through. The only one who stayed behind was Erik, not wanting to go anywhere near it. Through the portal, they stepped onto a roof of a skyscraper in New York City.
"Why would it make a portal to this place?" Bucky asked.
"This isn't just any building in New York," Tony said, "I'd recognize it anywhere. It's the old avenger's headquarters!"
Loki led the way around the roof and stopped everyone as soon as they came across the machine for opening the portal to the Chitiari. They watched Erik activate the portal and allow them to enter Earth's atmosphere from above.
"He can't see or hear us," Loki said, "I cast a spell on us making it so."
Dr. Strange asked, "I don't understand what's going on here. Thor, what did you do?"
"I asked for the real tesseract," he answered, "and as you can see, it's there within that machine, currently being used to bring the Chitiari here, but I have no understanding on why all of this is happening."
"This is 2012," Steve said, looking out over the city as terror struck, "we somehow made a time machine, and went back in time. How else would we be here?"
Tony said, "It sure looks like it."
"That's impossible," Dr. Strange said, "only the time stone can travel through time and even then, it can't do all of this."
"We haven't time traveled," Loki explained, staring at the tesseract inside the machine, "instead we created a portal into another universe entirely, one where the tesseract is currently in use because Thor wished to find it. We've opened a portal through the multiverse somehow."
"The multiverse?" Dr. Strange asked, "That's horrifying."
Tony asked, "You mean it's real? The idea that every choice we make there's a branch in time, creating an alternative universe where we're slightly different?"
"Yeah," Dr. Strange replied, "it's real, and I know it's real, but how did this happen?"
Loki, Steve, Thor, and Tony all answered in unison, "I don't know."
"That's annoying," Clint remarked.
Dr. Strange said, "I have no idea what just happened, but I'll figure it out, one way or another."
They all went back through the portal, and back to the avenger's headquarters completely and utter baffled at what to do next. Dr. Strange thanked Erik for his time and sent him home, and Thor shut down the power of the fake tesseract, closing the portal back up.
"What do we do now?" Tony asked, "Seriously, I'm asking for suggestions from anyone. Anyone have any ideas?" Everyone shook their heads, completely confused on how to move on.
Dr. Strange asked Loki, "How did this happen?"
Loki shrugged and said, "I have no answer for you. However, I believe there could be an answer in that book you so rudely ripped out of my hands the other day. The little I did manage to read in it had mention of the multiverse and infinity stones."
"Oh no," he said, backing away, "I'm not opening up the Darkhold. It's far too dangerous! It's said all those who read it become corrupted by its power."
Loki stared at him in disbelief and asked, "Tell me, do you consider yourself to be a good person?"
Dr. Strange scoffed and said, "I try my best, you pompous jackass! Why do you ask?"
"Then why does such a book still exist?" Loki asked seriously, "A good person would have rid it of this world if it truly is such a terrible influence. If you're as good a person as you claim, why haven't you destroyed it yet?"
Sam interjected, "He has a point."
"No," he explained, "he doesn't. He has no idea what he's talking about. It's prophesized that anyone who attempts to destroy the Darkhold will be slowly incinerated skin first, nerves last, so their dying breaths will feel every ounce of pain throughout the entire ordeal. I guess I just like living too much to see test that theory."
Loki said, "We have no alternative options, sorcerer, we need to read that book. I know it must hold some sort of answer for our problem because I glanced my eyes on it myself, but for a brief moment."
Dr. Strange stared at him. "Are you lying?"
He answered, "I am not."
"It looks like this is our only option, doc," Tony said, "what's so scary about this book anyway?"
"I already told you," He explained, "it corrupts anyone who reads it with its power. I'm not letting Loki here read it because he's already messed up and untrustworthy. Reading something like that might push him over the edge."
Loki said, "Perhaps I should be the one to read it, since I'm already 'corrupted' as you claim."
"No," Tony said, "I don't want you of all people anywhere near such power."
"I agree with Stark," Thor said.
Loki asked, offended, "Do you think so little of me, brother, that you actually believe I'll give in to such pathetic mortal power so easily?"
Thor answered, "If it is so dangerous, I don't want to lose you to its power." He gave him a nervous look, knowing after all the losses he suffered he didn't want to add to it. Loki didn't know how to react.
Steve asked, "Does anyone else have any other suggestions on what to do next?" He looked around the room at each person.
"I'm completely out of my wheelhouse here, Steve," Bucky answered, putting his hands up.
"Don't look at me," Sam said, "I don't know anything about spells or magic or infinity stones. I'm just here to look good."
Natasha said, "I don't know."
Clint added, "What she said. I'm out."
"I got nothing," Tony admitted.
Thor merely shook his head. Loki smiled at them all, knowing what he said needed to come into fruition. Dr. Strange sighed and conceded, "Alright! I'll read part of that damn book, but it better have what we're looking for." He portaled himself away.