Chapter Text
“I feel like I should be there too,” admitted Tony, as he and Rhodey stood in front of one of the portals left open in the Compound.
His friend looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. “Do you want to be there?”
“God, no,” said Tony, nose twisting slightly at the mere thought.
The last time he had set eyes on Steve Rogers had been two years prior, when the man had been forcibly removed from the Court for contempt. Rogers had tried to get in contact with him after that, sending letters and the like, but Tony had not taken a single message from him, and then had proceeded to block him at the source.
He failed to see how there was anything else worthy of being said, between the two of them, and thus was not going to hear anything he had to say.
Tony had lived two years blissfully Steve Rogers free, and he was not interested in breaking his streak. Chances of him managing to prolong said streak seemed pretty good considering that, barring a successful escape attempt, Rogers had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole.
“Then you don’t have to,” said Rhodey, with certainty, putting an arm around his shoulders. “You don’t owe him or anyone else anything ever again.”
Yes, Tony was aware of the fact. Everyone in his life had made it plenty clear to him already.
Sometimes he still needed someone to repeat it, thought, and Rhodey took great delight in doing so.
“All right,” he finally said, turning over to look at Vision. “You know you don’t have to do this either, right?”
The android had come far from who he had been two years ago too. With the mind stone no longer in his head and continued therapy sessions with an interesting sorcerer/therapist that worked with Stephen, Vision had gotten more... settled. More comfortable in his skin, in who he was as a person. All around much happier than he had been since the day he was created.
He had found his identity, who he was as a person, and for this Tony was very glad. The divide between him and the others at the beginning had been very clear to see, and while no one had ever been outright rude to him even back then, it had hurt Tony’s soul watching him float around in the background looking lost, afraid or unwilling to join in with everyone else.
“I am aware,” said Vision with a light smile. “But I do not mind. I no longer care about Mister Rogers or his delusions, so I am not worried about facing him.”
“Good for you,” said Tony, finally passing them the case he had been holding. “Be careful, and if you are looking for us or need something-”
“I shall call upon Heimdall after the event,” agreed Vision, nodding. Then he waved at them before he stepped through the portal, which automatically closed behind him.
“Better him than me,” decided Tony, shaking his head with a huff. “Did Stephen or Wong stay behind?”
“Nope,” said Rhodey, walking with him towards the other room, where another portal had been left behind. “He said he’d wait for us there.”
“He just wanted to get to the library before I could - allegedly - distract him,” muttered Tony, rolling his eyes. “Still, thank sweet mother Science for his fancy portals.”
“Right?” agreed Rhodey as they stepped through it and landed on Asgard. “I mean the Bifrost lightshow is very cool to look at but man is that thing uncomfortable.”
“I don’t understand how Carol manages to use it each time without feeling the need to barf, it’s awful. No wonder Asgardians are so insane all the time.”
“Are you complaining about Asgard and its infrastructure again?” asked Loki, appearing behind them. He closed Stephen’s portal with a simple wave of his fingers, glaring at it slightly. “He needs to stop leaving portals open like this. What if someone he didn’t count on manages to utilise them?”
“Save the lecture for him, we are innocent,” said Tony, letting him stand between himself and Rhodey. “But speaking of Asgardian infrastructure, when are you going to let me open up the Bifrost and improve it?”
Loki looked at him in amusement. “As soon as you convince the citizens of Asgard as a whole, and Thor and Hela, you can do whatever you wish with it.”
Tony made noise of discontent at this. As much as the people of Asgard seemed to like him and the others, they were very conservative in near about everything. They treated change and innovation as if it was an illness or a sickness, and Tony still wondered how Loki had managed to come out of living here for over a thousand years as sane as he had.
Not that he was sane. But in his position, Tony would have snapped far earlier.
“Aren’t you supposed to be my patron god?” he still tried, giving him his most convincing of expression (the one that, no matter how often he tried it, did not work as well on him as it did on virtually anyone else, Loki was far more powerful than Tony had previously thought). “It’s your responsibility to make me happy. Being unable to do as I wish with the Bifrost is making me unhappy.”
“Patron god,” agreed Loki, one eyebrow raised. “Not fairy godfather. Don’t push it, laerisveinn minn.”
In Tony’s personal opinion, Loki would make a pretty decent father, one day. Tony did not think of the man as his father, but he could not deny that Loki did have the habit of parenting the hell out of them all. It was highly confusing considering he looked younger than all of them except maybe Carol.
But, as Rhodey put it, “It was usually nice, Hope, Stephen and Tony had daddy issues anyway, so why not let the guy get away with it?”
(For the record, Tony, Hope and Stephen had protested this bold claim, but Carol and Rhodey could be very mean sometimes, especially when they allied themselves with Pepper and Happy)
That or an amazing pet sitter. It had been two years, and still Tony wasn’t completely sure that the man did not see them as show ponies he was very fond of. Or that the non-Thor Asgardians didn't, considering their expressions whenever they saw Loki walking around with them. Or when they saw them doing something that was very cool in their eyes, and then going off with Loki instead of staying with them.
The envy was palpable in those instances, as was Loki's smugness, but they had all agreed to pretend to not see it, since it didn't really hurt anyone.
Tony shot Rhodey a look, and the man nodded before glancing back at Loki. “Can you try to convince Thor, maybe? You’re his brother, you’d be better at convincing him. Plus I will be there with Tony anyway, and I will make sure he doesn’t get too carried away.”
“James, I am not my brother or a smartly dressed Midgardian. I know you. You must think me daft if you truly believe you can convince me that you and Anthony working together on the Bifrost is in any way safer than him working on it alone,” said Loki, appearing deeply unimpressed.
It was working against him right now, but man was Tony glad that people who were not the Moons™ (term coined by Tony and Carol but copyright pending because Pepper thought that it was stupid) had finally figured out how devious a man his Platypus could be when he wanted.
“But Thor doesn’t know that,” reminded him Rhodey, pointedly. “This way you could get a better working Bifrost and pull a fast one over your brother. Two birds, one stone. And I’m sure that we can put it back just the way we found it after, we are very good at it.”
“Yes,” agreed Tony, deciding to keep to himself the fact that ‘putting it back just the way they had found it’ usually ended up with them having more parts than they recalled starting with. Loki did not need to worry about that, though, it still worked the same or better, when they were done with it.
Loki sighed deeply, muttering something about 'the Norns giving him patience' and ‘understanding his mother’ (... yeah, that could mean both parent vibes or pet sitter vibes, Tony had nothing). He did not answer them, but he also did not refuse them immediately which Tony took it to be a good sign.
“How did your earlier activity end?” he instead asked, glancing over at Tony again. “Did you visit the soldier?”
“I didn’t go,” said Tony, shrugging. “I just gave the antiserum thing to Vision, and he and Bruce are going to make sure it is administered to Rogers correctly. Once that’s done...” he blew a raspberry, pointing a thumb down. “No more Captain America.”
Not that there had been a Captain America in years, but this was actually making it official.
Tony had been working on an antiserum long before the battle with Thanos. But he had waited until after the raisin had been defeated once and for all to complete the formula.
It turned out that some people were uncomfortable with the Captain being constantly forced to wear Vibranium chains even though he was already in prison. Something about human rights and it being ‘tantamount to torture’ (Tony begged to differ).
On the other hand, Steve Rogers was a very dangerous inmate. Prison had not made him any smarter or calmer than before, if the rumour mill was to be trusted, and he had already killed one guard in an attempt to escape before, months after being jailed. No one wanted him out of those bonds without a way to incapacitate him forever.
Creating the serum had been a necessity to appease both the bleeding hearts trying to start polls and petitions (the media could be so fickle), and also keeping the people (both guards and fellow inmates) inside the prison he was being kept at safe.
Also, it had been very therapeutic. Tony had created the machine that had turned the weapon that killed his parents into something closer to human again, and now created the serum that, with one single injection, destroyed the man who had, once upon a time, told him that without the suit Tony was nothing.
Tony did not deny he was a very vindictive person.
And poetry was a guilty pleasure of his.
Without the suit, Tony was still Tony Stark, the bastard who built the suit to begin with.
Without the serum, what was Steve Rogers?
An ill man with an overinflated sense of self.
Without his weapons or people supporting them, what were any of the Rogues?
Barton was a deranged criminal serving an 11 years sentence for his actions. It would have been less years, but the man had become more and more unhinged the longer his trial had gone on for. It was uncertain if it was because of Maximoff’s magic in his mind or if it was just him being him. He had still been fit to stand trial, unfortunately (or fortunately?) for him, and Tony doubted his rants and arguments had earned him any sympathy from the jury or the Court.
Tony had not spoken to him since either. The last time he had come into any sort of contact with him, it had been when he had reached out to the man’s family to return a SHIELD issued watch Barton had left behind at the Compound.
Laura Barton had taken it with a tight smile, and then promptly vanished along with her children.
Tony had not gone looking for her.
Lang was in a similar position to Barton, though he was serving less years. In the end, Tony had decided to not report him for attempted murder, despite several complaints from his friends and family. It just wasn't worth it, he had decided. Plus, Lang had sort of surrendered himself before everything had started unravelling, and had pleaded guilty immediately. He would only serve 7 years.
Tony did see the man’s family, because Hope was trying to help out Cassie. The little girl had been very lost after her father had gone to prison again, but Hope had been there for her - similarly, in a way, to how Carol had been with Hope herself after Janet had died and Hank’s neglect had begun.
They were cute together, and it was clear Cassie idolised Hope a lot.
Wilson was also trying to make amends, from what Tony had heard. The man was stuck in prison for 27 years with possible parole in 23, which was far less than what he could have ended up with. Like Lang, he had complied, and entered a plea deal; unlike Lang, he had a number of manslaughter charges on his name because of the tunnel in Bucharest.
Tony knew that Rhodey had gone to see him, but he had never shared what they had said to each other, and Tony hadn’t asked.
Russia had attempted to extradite Romanoff but, in the end, the US had won that particular battle. The woman was serving 58 years in prison, without the possibility of parole and being guarded day and night. Originally it had been 52 years, but after an attempt by the woman to escape, six years had been added. She had been returned to her cell with her legs apparently broken and rumour had it her new guards were ex SHIELD agents.
Allegedly.
Pepper had gone to seen her once.
Tony had asked her no questions either, when she had come back smiling from ear to ear.
Maximoff had been extradited to Sokovia, also being held for life. She was lucky, because Tony had not missed the millions of signatures online asking that she was sent to the electric chair - never mind that she was being tried by the ICC and that they did not do that. Similarly to Barton, the woman had apparently become more unhinged during her prison stay, but Tony wasn’t worried. Stephen’s spell held, and every one of them pretended they were not aware of Loki’s failsafe.
Barnes, Tony wasn’t sure what was happening with him. He had basically not interacted with the man face to face since he had brought him from Wakanda to New York, and he did not see that changing any time soon. He knew he had gotten rid of the triggers at some point last year, but nothing about a trial.
Tony was pretty sure his case was so rare and peculiar that no one even knew how to proceed or start with it. No one wanted him free on the streets, and no one wanted to actually charge him. Tony really hoped that, if there was one, he wasn’t asked to come in. He really enjoyed pretending the man didn’t exist.
Shuri had eventually returned to Wakanda after, in her own words, “helping to fix the minds and hearts of old white men all over America”. Her brother had been deposed by his people while she had been in New York because they no longer felt he kept the safety of Wakanda in enough regard any more, and she had become the new Queen of Wakanda.
Her Mother had been her regent during the beginning, seen as many countries disagreed with having a 16 years old (back then) on the throne, but while Wakanda was still dealing with some of the repercussions of T’Challa’s actions and of their isolation, they had come a long way.
SI had even been the first company to get a trade deal going with Wakanda and in exchange Pepper and Stark Industries had helped them navigate the international waters T'Challa's actions and behaviour had filled with sharks wanting to sink them.
“The world can only be all the better for it,” decided Loki, nodding. “I believe they should have kept him in the ice when they found him, but-”
Tony and Rhodey found themselves suddenly pulled back by Loki, seconds before a blade slashed the air where they had been standing just moments ago.
“Jesus!”
“Sorry guys!” shouted Carol, not even looking as sorry as she should for nearly killing them. “We didn’t see-” She cut herself off with a swear word when Hela tried to take the distraction as an excuse to attack her again. "Hey!"
“Had she not been kidnapped by aliens, I guarantee you she would have been the first of us to end up in prison for a serious crime,” said Tony, watching as Hela and Carol started ‘sparring’ again.
“Unlike you, she would never accidentally commit a crime,” informed him Loki. “It would be on purpose, or she would never get caught.”
Tony ignored that very rude statement, joining the various onlookers on the training grounds watching them in awe and slight fear.
He could relate: those two together were absolutely insane, and had Tony not been convinced of the fact that Carol was sweet on Maria Rambeau, he’d have long since suspected them of a tryst.
Although... he had never heard Carol say anything about polyamory before...
“I’m going to go look for Hope,” he decided, because this needed some further and immediate investigation. Rhodey glanced at him in suspicion, but Tony just waved at him before rushing off towards where he had last seen the woman.
Very serious investigation.
It was fascinating how much things had changed in such a short amount of time, mused Loki hours later, as he went to forcefully drag Stephen away from the Royal library.
Two years ago, Loki had been dealing with the Aesir Court disguised as Odin and preparing for the Mad Titan’s arrival in any way he could.
And now he was walking upon Asgard in his own skin again without fear, once more in good standing with the Aesir, and chasing after a group of Midgardians who’s bravery he still did not understand some days.
And he had a sister.
Hela’s arrival had not been something Loki had been prepared for.
When Thor had arrived on Asgard, discovered his ruse, and then forcefully dragged him to Midgard to ‘save’ the All-Father, Loki had had a plan: go to Midgard with the oaf, turn him into a Midgardian while he was not looking, and then entrust him to Stephen and his Order.
Thor had been shocked and confused about the ease with which some Midgardians had interacted with him after recognised him - the Thunderer had not, at the time, known that Anthony had cleared him with the Courts of Midgard and turned him into the Midgardian’s new favourite Norse god with the power of ‘some good ass PR’ - and had not noticed the portal Strange had created until he had fallen through it.
Then Loki had gone to the Sanctum to catch up with his disciples before Strange had located the fool Odin for them. Thor had been furious at his treatment when they had remembered about him and brought him back, and then confused when he had spotted Anthony and James. But he had not had time to voice either confusion or complaint before Strange had sent him away (only later on had Loki found out about Thor’s attempting to choke Anthony, and made his own displeasure known to his dear brother).
They had found Odin, who had spent a couple of minutes informing them of another evil sister they apparently had, before dramatically dying (and people dared to question where Loki got his dramatic tendencies from. The man’s reaction to anything mildly inconvenient happening to him was either falling in the Odinsleep or dying, no in between).
They had ended up on Sakaar for a time, unable to communicate with the rest of the Universe, and then arrived back on Asgard to find Hela attempting to raze it (and everything Loki had worked for) to the ground.
Thor had been ready to unleash Ragnarok, but Loki had had better plans. He had instead called on some reinforcements - people who were renowned for their ability of dealing with normally unresolvable situations.
Only Stephen, Anthony and Carol had come on that day, as they couldn’t all come and leave Midgard unprotected, much to the Hulk and Anthony’s mutual delight and Hope and James’ loud envy.
Hela had been confused by the sudden arrival of the Midgardians, and that had been how she had lost. Because while Hela was virtually unstoppable on Asgard and had proven herself an unstoppable force by Aesir standards, Loki’s disciples were very clever, very powerful, and very annoying.
It had taken Stephen seconds to transport the woman to the mirror dimension upon his arrival. Thor had been shocked and worried for his ‘shieldbrother’, as had been the Hulk, but only ten minutes later (time in the mirror dimension could pass a little faster than outside it, so he wasn't sure how long it had been for them) they had returned with a vexed but thoughtful Hela, who was now oath bound and seemingly no longer interested in attacking and destroying the Nine Realms.
Apparently, she had not understood that the people of Asgard had forgotten her because of a spell created by Odin rather than because they had been maligning her name. And the reason she had tried to kill Loki and Thor had been their attempt to attack her first and not kneel when asked.
Loki did not see how this made anything better, but Hela had compromised, promising to bring everyone she had slain back to life in exchange for Loki undoing Odin’s spell and the people of Asgard offering an apology and accepting her as a Princess of Asgard.
Since the remaining Aesir had no wish to be smited, they had all complied.
And then the subjects had started looking at Loki with much more appreciation and respect when they had realised that the three who had saved them all were not just Midgardians but, in fact, Loki’s disciples.
Loki might have gloated.
And with the goddess of death at their side, Thanos never stood a chance.
The Titan arrived about a month or so later with the Power Stone and his armies, and his army ran back with nothing, if they had managed to leave the planet at all.
A happy ending Loki had not seen coming, but that he was grateful for nevertheless.
“Well, it’s stupid,” he heard Hope say, as he rounded the corridor. The girl was walking beside Fandral and a couple of other Einherjar, and looking confused and annoyed. “I mean, isn’t she a warrior too?”
“Well, she is,” said one of the men, looking uncomfortable.
“Is she better than the rest of them?”
Fandral scoffed. “Perhaps better than Volstagg, and maybe Hogun. But I have bested Sif several times over.”
“Then it is incredibly stupid and sexist to continue calling you guys ‘Sif and the Warriors Three’. It should just be ‘the Warriors Four’. Why should Sif be set apart?”
Ah, thought Loki, caught between amusement and annoyance. Hope seemed ready to singlehandedly force the Realm Stagnant into accepting change through pure force of will. She was very opinionated, this one, and neither Loki nor Stephen had to worry about defending magic or seidr arts when she was around.
The first time someone had muttered something about Stephen being ‘womanly’, she had snapped back with everything women had achieved throughout the centuries and then demanded to know if there was anything inherently wrong with being a woman. The man had shut up very quickly, and a couple of dames around had also looked very proud and vindicated.
Loki had not even had to threaten the man for daring to speak on Stephen, her words had been very effective.
Anthony claimed that she was about to become the 'Aesir suffragette', which Loki wasn’t sure he understood the meaning of, but Hope had looked both intrigued and proud about potentially achieving this.
“As riveting as this conversation seems to be,” spoke up Loki, when it seemed as if everyone was just going to silently and awkwardly stand around Hope without an answer, “I am afraid I am going to have to interrupt. I have been looking for you. The feast has started, and you have already missed lunch.”
“I didn’t miss lunch,” said Hope, rolling her eyes. “Your friend Sigyn gave me a slice of pie, and I was too busy helping Rhodey and Tony with the Bi- with something.”
Oh, Loki was very aware that the three had gone to ‘tinker’ with the Bifrost while everyone’s back was turned, but he had decided that pretending to not know was more amusing.
“Would you like me to accompany you to the main hall?” asked Fandral, charm turned up, and absolutely not.
“That shan’t be necessary,” he said, smoothly linking his arm with Hope’s. “Where is Anthony? I believed him to be with you.”
His words were directed at her, but he made sure Fandral saw the glare directed at him. He did not care who they decided to share their affections with, but he drew the line at Fandral.
The blond pretended to be innocent, both hands up in an apology that Loki did not believe for a moment.
She gave him an amused and knowing smile even as she allowed herself to be pulled along. “Don’t you have us all spelled and micro chipped?”
“That is not necessary on Asgard,” said Loki, shaking his head. “I have you spelled just enough to know if you are in danger, otherwise you are mostly safe here. No one would dare harm you, unless they wished to feel my wrath.”
He pretended not to hear her mutter of ‘overprotective’, before she cleared her throat.
Considering who they were and their behaviour, could anyone truly blame him? Part of Loki was forever grateful he had only found them a few years ago. The idea of chasing after them when they had been youths by Midgardian standards gave him nightmares.
“I was with him until earlier, but then he went to the library to find Stephen, I think. Question, can sorcerers turn into vampires? Because I swear Stephen has not felt the sun since the day we got here.”
Loki chuckled as he teleported them with ease inside the library. Mother used to say the same about-
“Is nothing sacred here?!” demanded Loki, as soon as his eyes fell on the two figures in front of him. He had teleported himself at the table Stephen he had shown Stephen when they had first arrived on Asgard, Loki’s own favourite desk, and indeed the sorcerer was there.
As was Anthony.
All but having their way with each other atop the desk.
Anthony shrieked at their sudden appearance, dropping on the ground in his haste to get off Stephen and cover himself, while the sorcerer just cursed, the Cloak wrapping itself around him.
Hope made a sound of disgust, eyes fixing themselves on the ceiling. “Sex in the library? You guys are so disgusting, what in the depravity!”
“You could have ruined millennia old tomes,” added Loki, because that was what was really important there. The books!
“I cast protective spells around them,” complained Stephen, as he started grabbing his clothes.
“Premeditated,” said Hope, nose scrunching up. “You did it knowingly and on purpose, you are nasty, Strange.”
“No one told you to teleport in instead of knocking like normal people,” complained Anthony, standing up when he was once more wearing pants. “You reap what you sow.”
“We walked into a library, how is that reaping what I sowed? I sowed for books. Sowed books? Grammar is hard.”
“Make sure to clean up,” said Loki, sternly looking between the other two. “People come in here to read, if I hear one person complain about... fluids...” Hope gagged, “Inside of here, I will hold you two personally responsible.”
“Everyone has sex in the library!”
“Not on Asgard,” informed him Loki, once more feeling deep distaste for Midgard and their obsession with intercourse. It was almost as bad as Alfheim. “I shall never be able to walk in here and relax again.”
“I’m not sorry,” informed him Stephen.
“Another item off my bucket list: sex in a library on another planet before I get married,” added Anthony, fixing his shirt with a smirk.
“You are getting married tomorrow,” pointed out Loki as Stephen ran a spell around the desk and the floor and the books.
Anthony looked at the sorcerer with a besotted smile. “I am. But don’t worry, I have another list for after we get married.”
Stephen’s eyes were wicked. “As do I.”
Loki tried very hard to maintain the dislike Hope had naturalised on her face, but he found it a little hard, when he saw them this happy.
Indeed tomorrow Anthony and Stephen would be wedded on Asgard.
Many had argued that this was too soon, but Loki and the rest of his disciples knew that this was a very long time coming. And something like the public’s opinion was not going to dissuade two stubborn people like Anthony and Stephen.
It would be a most joyous occasion with FRIDAY coming to Asgard through an armour to witness it too, and Loki could not deny how gladdened he was for this. She deserved it, and at the very least she’d be able to film it for the bots and Vision (now that the Mind Stone was gone from him, Loki found himself thawing slightly when it came to the android).
There would be another wedding on Midgard too, which Loki would also attend, but weddings on Asgard were much more exciting and fanciful.
Stephen opened a portal to the Hall, where they found James and Carol already seated, talking to each other. Goose was at their table, which ensured a very wide berth was given to their table (not all Aesir feared flerken, but a good majority did, Thor is particular).
Hope, Anthony and Stephen proceeded towards them, and Loki smiled a little to himself as Anthony stole James’ plate for himself and Carol wrapped an arm around Hope as soon as she was close enough.
Their bond was stronger than ever, and their belief in him just as strong.
Loki had never thought himself one for sentiment, but seeing them so bright and happy, being able to witness their happiness?
It made him strangely happy.
“Loki?” called Stephen, looking back at him with a raised eyebrow. “You okay?”
Loki smiled, nodding. The five golden apples inside of his pocket dimension did not even feel particularly heavy.
“Better than.”
“Come on then,” said Stephen, beckoning him forward. “I can hear Thor lying about knowing Tony first, do you want to hurt his feelings yourself or should I do it?”
Loki grinned.
Better than, indeed.