Chapter Text
Outer Space — Present Day
When Hela sauntered into the back of the ship, Loki had finally passed out from exhaustion, one pale cheek smushed uncomfortably against Thor's armor-clad shoulder. She took a set opposite them next to the girl with the antennas. Thor's older sister ignored Mantis's smile of greeting and crossed her arms over her chest, dark eyes unreadable as she stared at them. Loki shifted, and Thor adjusted their positions so he could sleep a little more comfortably.
"What's the plan when we get there?" Hela asked. Thor narrowed his eyes and lifted a finger to his lips. She repeated the question, not bothering to lower her voice one bit.
"I don't know," He admitted quietly into the heavy silence. Things had been happening so fast, Thor didn't have much time to think, not that thinking was his forte. "Loki sent our people to where the last free stone is, and that's Earth."
"You know this for a fact?"
"The Aether seems to point that way," He said, frowning. It was hard to describe, but the Infinity Stone within his body spoke in various flashes of disjointed images and whispers of thoughts. He had seen an open field, lush and green, with a gleaming city in the background.
"Thanos will most likely already be there by now," Hela said, her pale jaw working in annoyance at the thought, "Since you two useless idiots gave up the Space Stone."
"Loki was trying to protect our people," He sighed, bending to peer at his little brother, "and me."
"The chance of this going sideways and everyone dying is extraordinarily high."
He lifted an eyebrow, "Are you scared, sister? I thought you were the Goddess of Death."
"I'm not the one that should be afraid," She smirked and leaned forth, "he will rip that Reality Stone from your head, Thor."
"At least he doesn't want to stick his purple dic—"
The sharp bite of a blade kissed Thor's exposed throat, silencing the rest of his insult.
"I'd care how you address me, boy," Hela purred, "I haven't decided to help you and your weakling friends yet."
Mantis had her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth as she watched their scuffle. Hela increased the pressure for a fraction of a second, making sure he felt the hot prickle of pain before she dissolved the blade with her magic. The dreadful silence settled over them again. Thor exhaled.
"I should send him off," He admitted out loud, "open a wormhole or something with the Aether and just toss Loki through it."
"He'd despise you for it," Hela pointed out, "the boy is awfully proud."
"At least that way he'll live. I'm used to him hating me. It's selfish of me to make him stay," Thor admitted, careful not to jostle Loki, "I suppose it is of a little comfort that even if we perish in battle, we will reunite with our parents in Valhalla."
"Will he?" His older sister mused, sliding long pale fingers through her jet black hair and untangling the knots, "He's a frost giant."
Ice settled in the pit of Thor's stomach at her observation. "How dare you insinuate—"
"She's right," Loki said suddenly, lifting his head from Thor's shoulder and shrugging off his arm. He ran a hand over his tired face and dropped his gaze to the grimy floor of the ship. "I'm not Asgardian. My biological father tossed me out to die. Your father only took me home because he wanted a war prize, I was meant to serve as a display of Odin's power and dominance over the Nine Realms. To show that he was strong enough to keep a child of the enemy so close and still retain his—"
"You truly think that?" Thor interrupted, hurt spreading inside his chest at the poisonous words, "still?"
"It matters not what I think," Loki's pale throat bobbed violently as he swallowed, "I was born on Jotunheim, to Frost giant parents. Frost giants don’t go to Valhalla when they die.”
"You're my brother!" Thor insisted, head reeling at the horrible thought, "you said you met them before Mother brought you back, surely—"
"Odin said we weren't in Valhalla, it was some in-between place," Loki's pale fingers twisted restlessly in his lap. "He said it wasn't my time."
"You have proven yourself worthy so many times already," Thor scowled, grabbing his younger brother roughly so that he could force their eyes to meet. "Father sees this, Loki. He'd be a fool not to!"
"Let go of my face," Loki complained, cheeks squished between Thor's meaty hands.
"And if he doesn't, then," Thor bit his lip, "screw Valhalla."
Loki's eyes widened in alarm. "Don't speak like that, you idiot!"
“Where you go, Loki. I will follow,” He promised, “We both will. Right, sister?”
“Still not a part of this,” Hela said without looking up from the complicated braid she was weaving into her locks.
“You and I are two parts of a whole, Loki,” Thor said simply, “the afterlife would not be the same without you there, brother.”
“Why all the pessimism, boys?” The Grandmaster interjected from the doorway. He wiggled his eyebrows at Loki’s annoyed expression. “Play, play ah your cards right and no one has to die.”
His little brother narrowed his eyes at that odd sentence, “what does that mean?”
The old man merely winked at him in reply.
"He's just messing with us," Thor dismissed, rolling his eyes, "come on, Loki. You need to rest."
"I doubt anyone can fall asleep now that—"
He slumped forward abruptly, and it was only Thor's quick reflexes that saved his younger sibling from face-planting at Hela's feet. Mantis smiled at them, her hand still on Loki's forearm.
"I put him down," She explained to the room.
"Permanently or just temporary?" Thor asked, sticking a worried finger under Loki's nose. He heaved a relieved sigh when he felt a long exhale. "Wait, you can put people to sleep?"
"I can also feel their emotions," Mantis added, her eyes huge.
"Really?" Thor asked, curious, "what does he feel about me?"
Her face scrunched in concentration. "That you are annoying, arrogant, and an idiot with little to no brain function."
Thor scowled.
"But he loves you anyway," She finished, beaming.
"I'll take it." He shrugged, smiling down at the unconscious form of his little brother sprawled gracelessly in his lap.
Wakanda — Present Day
"Where's Steve?!" Bucky shouted past the wind buffeting his face. Stark had both metal arms around his waist as they hurtled through the air, dodging the shower of flaming debris raining from the disintegrating ship.
"Deep breath, Barnes," Tony bellowed back. His suit hummed beneath Bucky's fingers as it pushed power to the max and they took a gut-wrenching drop to avoid being sliced in two by the alien woman's sharp spear.
"Hang on!" Stark instructed. Bucky wrapped his metal arm around the man's neck, threw both legs over his hip and clung on. Tony flipped the suit over, lifted both hands from Bucky's waist and fired off a series of searing-hot beams at their enemy. Bucky, eyes streaming with tears from the cold air, saw the wizard's cloak whiz past, knocking the woman away from them and wrapping around Steve's free-falling form.
"Strange's cloak's got him," He yelled in Tony's ear.
"Ok, I'm taking you down to the ground," Iron Man said, grabbing ahold of him once more as they shot toward the land where miniature figures were in full battle with the strange black creatures pouring endlessly from outside the destroyed Wakandan energy barrier.
"Preferably not in the middle of a pile of monsters?!" Bucky grunted, stumbling when Tony touched down on the scorched earth and they broke apart.
"Hard to pick a spot without any," He snapped back, lifting both arms to power on the cannons. Bucky socked one of the strange dog-like creatures with his metal fist, winced at the jarring pain in his shoulder, and yanked a spear from a nearby dead Wakandan soldier.
"Go help the others, I'll be fine," He told Stark.
"Here," The man handed something over. It looked like a tiny headpiece. "Yell if there's trouble."
"Will do," Bucky squinted past runny eyes as the red and gold suit shot into the air and northward. He took a deep breath and broke into a run. Piles of smoldering bodies lay strewn across the destroyed ground. He spotted a few familiar cloaks, now all in tatters, of the border tribes. Gritting his teeth, Bucky slammed his spear into one of the still crawling creatures and twisted, hearing the snap of bone as it went limp.
A fresh wave of the black things appeared over the hilltops. The large alien woman was nowhere to be seen, but Bucky had a feeling she'd survived the fall. He flinched when something landed on the ground next to him. Stark's suit zoomed past as Steve groaned and sat up, his face covered in dirt.
"You're welcome, Rogers!" Tony yelled.
Bucky pulled Steve to his feet and smiled as the wizard's cape settled happily around him again.
"You alright?" Steve asked, still spitting out bits of grass and dusting off his ass.
"Fucking fantastic," Bucky grunted, driving his spear into the monster bounding their way and flinging it off to the side. His shoulder twinged again, more insistent this time.
"You don't look fine, Buck," Steve eyed him with worry. Goddamn Rogers and his almost inhuman ability to tell when Bucky was hurt or lying.
"You can play nurse on me all you want after we get rid of these things, OK?” Bucky promised, stumbling as Steve yanked him out of the way and punched the monster rushing at them. The creature went down like a rock, its skull crushed.
"Damn," Bucky whistled. Steve shrugged, wiping black slime off of his gloved knuckles.
"Any way you can punch us through that?" Bucky pointed to the writhing mass of creatures headed their way. The man with the wicked-sharp glaive made a bounding leap just as Steve lifted his shield. The resounding bang sent Bucky staggering, his ears ringing as if a detonator bomb just went off within touching distance. The cloak around his shoulders cushioned the worst of the shockwave. He crawled to his feet, spots dancing in his eyes as a thick bolt of crimson lightning forked from the sky. The taste of ozone filled the air. Goosebumps rippled across Bucky's skin as the towering figure in the eye of the electric storm lifted a massive ax and brought it down hard. The earth shook beneath their feet, and the monstrous man Steve had been grappling with fell to his knees, head severed from his shoulders.
"I see you've copied my beard, Steven," Their mysterious rescuer let out a booming laugh as he extended a hand to Steve.
"About time you showed up," Steve griped, reeling the strangely-dressed blond man into a one-armed hug. "What happened to your hair?"
"Long story—"
"Enough pleasantries, Thor. We don’t have time for this."
Bucky turned at the silky drawl and found a dark-haired man, wearing equally strange garbs and wielding two daggers standing behind him. As he stared on in bewilderment, the man's pale skin rippled, blue seeping in as his green eyes darkened to a blood red. He threw one of the daggers and jagged ice burst from where it impaled the monster.
"Get rid of the outrider portals," He ordered the one wielding the ax, "Thanos is coming. I can feel it."
"Loki?" Steve asked, disbelief coloring his expression. "You're blue."
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Thor grinned and shot off into the air, lightning crackling across his skin.
"You're here to help or finish the job from six years ago?" Steve asked suspiciously, kicking one of the outriders as Loki had called them.
"I am your ally for now," The strange blue man replied vaguely.
"Alright gang, Anna and Elsa have joined the fight," Bucky heard Stark's irritating voice over the earpiece, "along with a scary hot girl with a big-ass sword. Jesus, she's doing a ton of damage, really hope she's on our side."
"Who's the lady with the sword Tony's talking about?" Steve panted as the three of them raced up the hill.
"Hela, Goddess of Death," Loki grunted, stabbing another outrider with a blade of ice, "our long-lost older sister."
"You're Asgardian," Bucky realized. No wonder the costumes, er, clothes, looked familiar. Loki's blood-red eyes fell on him for a fraction of a second, cold expression unreadable.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug, "more or less."
"Don’t worry, they’re safe," Bucky told him between stabbing an outrider and running, "the women and children, I mean."
"Not for long," Loki said grimly as something massive broke through the atmosphere above the city. The creatures around them roared as one. He lifted a hand over his eyes and murmured, "that's Thanos's flagship. He's brought more Chitauri soldiers."
"We didn't kill them all when you led the Chitauri to New York?" Steve scowled, panting and clutching a stitch in his side.
"They have infinite numbers, Captain," Loki explained smoothly, "Thanos commands them all. What he gave me to decimate your pathetic city with was a small battalion at most. He's here for the remaining Infinity Stones." He turned to Bucky, "you have communication access to the annoying little man in the flying metal suit?"
Bucky nodded. Loki strode over and pressed two cold fingers against his earpiece. There was a rush of static, then he cocked his head to the side and said, "Stark?"
"Who's this?" Came Tony's immediate reply.
"Loki. Tell me where the rest of the stones are."
"How do I know that you're really on our side, Elsa?" Stark said testily, "What if you stab us in the back and go crawling to your old master again?"
"I almost died protecting my idiot of a brother, Stark. I am not keen on repeating that experience."
"And gave him pink-eye in the process?"
"That's the Reality Stone, you imbecile."
"I missed this, you know. This charming back and forth between us," Tony exhaled on a laugh. It sounded a little hysterical, "Fine, there's a weird party city wizard that has the Time Stone, the Soul Stone is in Wakanda's mines, Reality is in Thor, and Vision has the Mind Stone from your scepter in his forehead."
"What a waste of an Infinity Stone," Loki muttered, severing the head of an outrider and spraying Bucky with scalding black blood. "Tell the second-rate wizard and your purple robot baby to stay away from this battlefield. If they come here, it will only hasten our demise."
"Yeah, about that," Tony began as over a dozen golden portals fizzled into existence in the sky around them. Vision soared through one of them with Wanda. Bucky saw the tiny red form of the Spiderboy swing his way through another. He winced as half a dozen outriders immediately buried the poor kid in a writhing avalanche of bodies.
"Fuck," Steve said with feeling.
"Fuck indeed," Loki agreed with a grimace.
"This gun is freakin' amazing!" A tiny furry raccoon in a tactile vest whirled past, a massive gleaming weapon clutching to its chest. It was perched on the shoulder of a...tree.
Bucky felt his jaw drop. "Steve."
"What?" His best friend grunted.
"I just saw a raccoon wearing people clothes and holding a big gun…”
Steve paused long enough to shoot him a concerned look, "did you hit your head earlier? Let me see your eyes, Buck."
"No, I'm not concussed—"
"That's Rocket, he's with us," Loki drawled, brushing past them. "And yes, that is a walking and talking tree you just saw."
"I'm going to need even more therapy after this," Bucky muttered as he raced after the two.
-
"Almost thought we lost you back there," Quill greeted Loki as he led the two mortals up to the ledge where the rest of the rag-tag Nidavellir group had stationed themselves. He jerked his chin at the Captain and his friend, "who are these people?"
"Captain America and..." He hadn't caught the man's name, "some guy with a metal arm."
"I'm Bucky," said the polite stranger with the shiny brown hair.
"Captain America? Like the real deal?" Quill asked as he spun around and shot a Chitauri soldier in the face. His sweaty face gleamed under the sun as he deactivated his mask and openly gawked at the blond man on Loki's right. "I had a whole box of comics books about you."
"They have comic books in space?" Steve Rogers asked tentatively.
"Oh no, I was born on Terra, I mean Earth. Well, my dad's an alien, a sentient planet actually. He sent my old man to kidnap me, but Yondu ended up keeping me around the ship 'cause I was so darn cute," He explained sporadically as they killed more of the Chitauri troops. Quill winked at him, "right, Loki?"
"No," Loki replied, "stop talking and concentrate."
"Hey Cap, can I get your autograph after?"
"Kid, if we make it out of this, you can have all the autographs you want," The Captain sighed, meeting Loki's unimpressed gaze.
"Sweet," Quill beamed, "I'm Quill by the way, Peter Quill. People call me Star-Lord."
Loki scanned the chaos below. Hela was leading the charge with a bunch of the local warriors on gray horned beasts to the east of the battlegrounds, Stark zooming above them and providing extra cover for the humans below. He couldn't see Thor in the throng of bodies, but he could feel the power of the Aether nearby. Judging by the occasional bolt of lightning from above, his brother was very much holding his own against Thanos's henchmen. Then, he spotted the colorful splash of gold and blue among the mess of bodies. The Grandmaster, unarmed and unhinged, pranced along in the madness, waving to the soldiers on horseback streaking past him. Loki teleported down to the muddy field next to him.
"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled at the deranged old man, pulling him out of the way of a charging outrider, "We told you to stay in the ship!"
"Oh, my darling boy, how how c-could I resist," The Grandmaster laughed, eyes alight with mad excitement, "look, look at them go, Loki. My champions, ha!"
"Your what?"
"Oooh, look at that one, that one's new," En Dwi Gast pointed to the silver form of Stark's female companion as she hurtled past her lover, cannons blazing, "I l-like her." He curled fingers around Loki's leather vambrace, "that little spider-child is is is very strong, hmm? I should steal them and, and put them in the, in the fight pit in Sakaar. Loki, you remember the fight pit?" The Grandmaster gasped suddenly, tugging Loki along, "the green beast, my p-precious Hulk is here."
"You've lost your mind," Loki panted, dispatching another blood-thirsty beast before it could sink sharp claws into the old man. "I'm getting you out of here." He tapped into the comm feed again, "Stark, where is the shelter?"
"Within the mountains," Came the distracted answer, "You sending someone over? Take Pepper with you. She shouldn't be out here. It's too dangerous for—"
"Tony!" The woman's annoyed voice interrupted, furious, "I am not leaving you to fight these things alone!"
"Ah, Loki, dear boy," En Dwi Gast tugged on the tattered remnants of Loki's cape. "We've, ah, got company."
"What?" He whirled around just in time to dodge the heavy spear Proxima tossed his way. It flew back into her hand as she straightened, towering above both of them. Loki shoved the old man, and with a burst of magic, teleported him up to the Captain and the rest of their group.
"Not going to run, maggot?" She purred at him, twirling the sharp weapon in her hands.
"What's the point of running now?" He swallowed, magicking two thick blades of ice over his forearms.
"I'm going to enjoy ripping the entrails from your body, Trickster," Proxima spat, "your brother took the life of one of mine. Rest assured I will repay the debt and make your agony unending."
Loki blocked her first strike clumsily, boots slipping in the wet earth. Physical combat was one of his weakest areas. Growing up, Loki had turned his nose up at the ungainly sight of Thor and his simpleton friends grappling in the dirty training yard for hours on end, bloodied and bruised and spitting curses at one another as they fought. He declined most of Thor's extended offers to train him, and as the years had gone by, his older brother had stopped asking. Most of Loki's moves, he'd learned from watching Thor and Sif or reading from a book.
He conjured a dozen clones and hurled them at Proxima Midnight. She called his bluff almost instantly, slashing through the illusions and sending Loki flying with a hard kick to the chest. He landed on his back, vision swimming and blood hot and salty in his mouth. The silver chain around his neck swung wildly as Loki scrambled onto all-fours, gasping. The ice did not seem to deter Thanos's furious daughter as she clawed her way out of the jagged prison he had conjured. Proxima lifted the spear, a sadistic smile on her face. Loki clenched his teeth and braced for pain, but he felt a buffet of cool air through his hair, and she stumbled back as a sentient tablecloth wrapped itself around the woman's face and dragged her back.
"Come on!" The brunet man who had introduced himself as Bucky earlier twisted a metal fist in Loki's mud-streaked tunic and lifted him bodily off the ground. Steve Rogers hurtled past them, throwing himself at Proxima. He heard a loud rip. She had torn the cloth with her spear and flung it off to the side.
"Shit," Bucky hissed, pulling out two blades and fumbling one to Loki as the outriders behind Thanos's daughter finally reached them. He shoved the metal arm into the gaping maw of a creature and crushed its throat from within.
Loki grunted when two outriders slammed into him, hot, foul-smelling slobber dribbling onto his exposed face as they clawed and bit at him. He caught the thing's jaws and ripped it apart with both hands, searing pricks of pain running up his arms from the sharp fangs digging through his exposed palms. It collapsed on top of him as the other outrider took over, snapping aggressively at Loki's unprotected throat. The necklace around his neck pulsed once, a reverberating bone-deep ache that sent the creatures flying backwards and robbed the breath from Loki's lungs. His vision flickered. It was thrumming like a miniature sun against his chest. He heard the distant thundering of hooves and saw, out of the corner of his eyes, a golden figure sat atop a wing horse swoop past.
It was a Valkyrie.
But all the Valkyries were dead, with the exception of Brunnhilde, and he had spotted her blue cloak on the other side of the battlefield.
Two more winged horses flew by, their riders lifting gleaming spears above their heads, long hair shining in the Wakandan sun.
"How long are you going to lie there?" A familiar teasing voice asked.
Heart pounding in his throat, Loki twisted and saw Fandral's smirking face above him. His edges were cast in the same strange golden sheen, but when the dead Asgardian warrior reached down to Loki, his fingers felt solid tangled in Loki's.
"How?" He breathed, staring at Fandral.
"You call, Prince Loki," He murmured, jerking his chin at something behind them, "and Asgard answered."
"I d-didn't—" Loki stammered, the words catching in his tight throat as he saw the massive golden gates of Valhalla, long-dead warriors of old pouring out of its depth to join the fight in the land of the living.
"One last ride?" Fandral asked, squeezing his shoulder.
"What?" Loki blinked past the stinging wetness in his eyes and met Fandral's amused gaze.
"Whoever kills more monsters wins," He elaborated, slicing through an outrider with his broadsword.
"How is that fair? You're dead, you don't feel pain like I do," Loki found himself settling instantly into the familiar rhythm of their old bickering. Fandral was the only one of Thor's close pals that Loki actually got along with.
"Life's not fair, Loki," Fandral reminded, laughing. "Come on, you're making this too easy!"
All around them, Asgardian warriors dead and alive were fighting side by side with the native people. Loki flinched as Thor dropped down beside him, eyes blazing and beaming with pride. He caught Loki in a one-armed hug. Up close, his brother smelled of the storm and death.
"You did this," He said, smile so bright it hurt to behold, "I told you Father thought you worthy, Loki."
"Where's Thanos?" He managed to squeeze out through the emotional lump in his throat. Thor's smile faded, discomfort resurfacing.
"Fighting Hela," He said vaguely, "she still hasn't beaten the poet out of him yet. I got sick of the death threats and flirting."
"Ugh," Loki muttered.
Thor threw Stormbreaker and Loki watched as it raced through the air, cutting down droves of outriders.
"Proxima said she was going to disembowel me with her bare hands because you beheaded her brother," He shouted at Thor, smirking inwardly when the Reality Stone flared angrily in Thor's eye-socket.
"Did she now?" He growled, crimson energy skidding down his massive arms as Stormbreaker came hurtling back soaked in outrider blood.
"She's over there," Loki pointed in the vague direction where he'd last seen Proxima Midnight.
"Wait here," Thor ordered and shot into the air once more.
"Really?" The brunet man asked from a few feet away where he was helping Fandral cut through a hoard of the creatures.
"What?" Loki glanced at Bucky and shrugged, "I'm not gonna fight that thing myself."
Fandral snorted as he teleported over to them and placed a palm on Bucky's injured shoulder. The hairline fractures in the bone beneath knitted back together with a burst of Loki's magic. He worked his metal shoulder with a look of wonder.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," Bucky breathed in awe.
"Call us even," Loki replied before promptly throwing him at the advancing outriders and teleporting away.
-
Before meeting Hela, Tony had thought Thor powerful, but seeing her against the purple madman hellbent on wiping out half of the universe, he realized that his limited imagination just didn't cut it when it came to the Asgardians and their inhuman resilience.
"You are formidable, my lady," He spat out a mouthful of blood and retreated a few steps behind the two remaining sentient creatures under his command. T'Challa and the other man in the vibranium cat suit had managed to kill the giant lumbering one, and all that was left were Fish-Face and a slender hooded woman who hadn't done much physical damage since she'd stepped off the ship after Thanos.
"But the stones are my birthright," Thanos continued. Their attacks were bouncing uselessly off of the silver shields Fish-Face had erected around Thanos.
"And Asgard was mine," Hela drawled, leaning her weight against the longsword and regarding him with narrowed green eyes, "we can't all have what we want, darling."
"Hand over your brother, and I will create New Asgard in your image," He murmured, "you can take your new army and what's left of mine, conquer the realms like you used to."
"Tempting," She mused, "but like I said, I take what's mine. I don't wait for a man to hand over scraps."
"Very well, my lady, you will not reason with me. Perhaps Stark will," Thanos said, and before Tony could react, the hooded woman on his right lifted a slim arm.
Nothing happened at first. Tony's heart thudded in his throat. Then, to his horror, Pepper's silver Iron Woman suit dropped from the sky. She landed on one knee in front of the force field.
"Pepper, what are you doing?!" He dove sharply down, but it was too late. The nano-suit rippled and retreated as Pepper shed the armor and stepped inside.
A golden lasso of energy stopped Tony from ramming head-first into Fish-Face's energy fortress. Dr. Strange touched down next to Tony. His face was streaked with blood and dirt, the once-vibrant cloak around his shoulders blackened and ripped at the edges.
"Wait," He murmured, "she's being controlled."
Thanos smiled, beckoning Pepper closer with a large hand. He glanced at a tense Tony, "My daughter Gamora once had hair as fiery as hers. She has a fierce soul, Stark. You must be very fond of each other."
"What game are you playing at?" Tony snarled, shaking with rage. Pepper's gaze was blank as she turned to face them. He fired up his blasters as Thanos put a hand on her thin shoulders.
"Give up the remaining stones, Stark, or I will take the lives of your wife and unborn child," Thanos said.
"What?" Tony swayed at the words, a curious hollow noise spreading in his panicked skull.
"He does not know, Father," Fish-Face said with an ugly smirk, "the pathetic mortal is unaware that he has sired a child."
"How careless," Thanos said, clicking his tongue.
"Please," Tony swallowed, "d-don't hurt her."
"The stones, Stark," The Titan reminded, "give them to me, so that she and the child may survive."
"He is thinking of attacking us, Father," The strange woman at Thanos's side spoke suddenly, "Stark has no intentions of giving up the Infinity Stones."
Fish-Face lifted a finger and metal shards from the ground flew into the air, arranging themselves into a wickedly sharp blade that settled against Pepper's neck. She gave no outward reaction.
"No, no, I'm not going to fight you, please just don't hurt her," He staggered forward, hands uplifted and pleading, "I'll get you the stones. I-I-I need time."
Hela cocked her head at him, her gaze disapproving.
"Please," Tony whispered at her, hoping against hope that the woman would not doing something drastic.
"Two of them are stuck in living hosts," A familiar voice chimed up from behind as Loki shimmered into view behind them. He was still blue, those blood-red eyes focused on Pepper as he approached. "They prefer their current mediums. If you attempt to remove them by force, it will not bode well for either party."
"What are you saying, Trickster?" Thanos asked.
"Father, I cannot get a read on him," The hooded woman frowned, taking a step forward and regarding Loki with interest, "his mind is fractured."
"I'm a bit on the mad side," Loki flashed a savage smile at her, "allow us time to remove them, My Lord. And I will bring them to you myself."
"As you did with the Space Stone?" He regarded Loki with narrowed eyes.
"I did what I had to to protect my people, Lord Thanos," Loki murmured silkily. He glanced at Hela, "if not for our detour, would you have met my lovely sister?"
Hela shifted on her feet, and for a fraction of a tense second, Tony genuinely thought she was going to stab Loki for that comment.
"Very well," Thanos inclined his head, "how long?"
"Three days."
"Three days, Trickster? You really think I will give you a chance to plot and wiggle your way out of my grasp again?"
"Twenty-four of Earth's hours then," Loki tried again.
"No," Thanos replied, "ten at most."
"Perhaps I can be of help," Strange stepped forward. "I will give you the Time Stone in exchange for more...time with extracting the others."
He glanced at Tony, then at Loki, his expression unreadable.
"Twelve of Earth's hours," Thanos relented, "for the Time Stone, Sorcerer."
"Are you truly this rushed to rid half of all life in the universe, Thanos?" Hela spoke up, her tone bland, "what can a few more hours do to jeopardize your imminent success?"
The Titan turned to her, "What are you saying, my lady?"
"Give them twenty-four hours, " She commanded, banishing the massive sword with a wave of her hand, "I will find something to distract you for the remaining twelve."
He chortled at the words, dark eyes gleaming. "Are you offering what I think you are?"
Loki's older sister simply lifted a hand and the Titan reached across the force field, drawing her close. Fish-Face was watching them with clear suspicion in his pasty face. Tony waited with bated breath. Thanos seemed to consider the idea for a moment before nodding at the hooded woman.
"Very well. You have twenty-four hours," He announced, large hand settling at Hela's narrow waist, "now give me the Time Stone, sorcerer."
Strange made a series of complex gestures and the eye-shaped necklace parted to reveal a glowing green rock sitting in the pupil. He plucked the stone from its resting place and let go. Tony looked on helplessly as it glided to Thanos, who smiled triumphantly and slotted it into one of the knuckles of the gauntlet. Light coursed through the entire glove and up his arm. He flexed his fist and smiled.
"Let her go," He ordered Fish-Face. The alien glanced at Tony with a nasty smirk. He flicked a finger and threw Pepper out of the energy shield.
Loki caught Tony's fiancée in a flash of green light, managing to teleport there just in time. Her head lulled in his arms. Pepper's eyes were tightly closed. Tony nearly tripped over his own two feet in his haste to reach them.
"Twenty-four hours," Thanos said, gesturing for his henchmen to recall the monsters as he turned to leave.
"Make it count," Hela muttered before the light swallowed them.
All around, the alien creatures were retreating. Thor landed a few feet off, his expression puzzled as he called out to them, "why are the creatures leaving? Have we won?"
"No," Tony grimaced, "we just lost a stone."
Thor's mismatched eyes widened, "What? How?"
"It was the only way," Strange said, placing a palm on the god's chest and stopping him from running over to the huddled trio. "We needed more time."
"Pepper, baby. Can you hear me?" Tony deactivated the suit and cupped her pale face in his palms, "come on, open your eyes."
"She's fine," Loki murmured, placing a pale hand over her abdomen. He had shifted back to his human visage. "So is your daughter, Stark."
Tony's weak legs finally gave out from underneath him at the onslaught of information.
"What now?" He asked after a weary pause, still clutching Pepper's hand tightly in his.
"Clock's ticking," Loki murmured, meeting their grim eyes, "like Hela said, we have to make it count."