Thursday Morning – Avengers Compound
The second sunrise since their return crept across the reinforced glass of the Avengers Compound. But the morning brought no warmth. The rogue Avengers stood quietly in the corridor outside the common area, their reflections cast in the gleaming surfaces of the upgraded walls.
It wasn't home anymore.
Steve shifted his weight uncomfortably, scanning the high-tech bulkheads and surveillance nodes embedded in the ceiling. "It's different."
"More like a military base than a home," Sam added, arms folded.
"Feels like walking into someone else's war," Clint muttered. No one disagreed.
Every hallway buzzed with quiet coordination. Ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives, private contractors, and elite soldiers from the world's most elite forces — Mossad, Shaldag, SAS, Navy SEALs moved with discipline. Weapons crates were stacked beside medics performing triage drills. You couldn't walk ten feet without seeing a loaded sidearm or a facial scan in progress.
Wanda reached out with her powers, only to quickly draw back. The whole building bristled with countermeasures even some that repealed her powers Tony's new security net was built to hold even the strongest among them in check.
Natasha noted the pattern. They weren't just being ignored. They were being watched.
Rooms they used to walk into without knocking were now sealed with biometric locks. They had access to the training area, their quarters, and little else. The labs, armories, and briefing centers now required authorization Rhodey's or Vision's.
"This place doesn't trust us," Wanda said flatly.
"Would you?" Natasha responded softly. Her voice held no venom. Just fact.
Steve remained silent. The guilt, the decisions, Siberia they sat heavily in his chest. The halls no longer welcomed him. They echoed. Hollow. Cold.
Far Beyond – Edge of the Cosmos
Far from Earth, where light bends and sound has no meaning, a faint blue glow pulsed within a golden gauntlet. The Space Stone mourned.
It mourned for the lives lost during its brutal retrieval. It mourned for its keeper Loki, the trickster who wielded it with clever hands and a complicated heart.
Its protector.
Now, he drifted in silence, dying.
In a secret place between realms, the Stones convened a council of light and consciousness that mortals could never reach.
Space spoke first, voice trembling like the shimmer of a star seen through tears:
"I can't.... I won't lose him. Not like this. He saved me, carried me. His hands shook, but his will didn't. I never even thanked him. He's still just a child.... a teenager by his kind's reckoning. I must help him."
Time answered, ancient and steady, each word layered with the weight of eternity:
"Freeze him. I can slow the decay. Suspend him in hibernation. But it will cost me much."
Reality, ever shifting, chimed in, her voice a thousand hues of probability:
"Bend the threads. Nudge fate. Hide him in places even Death would overlook."
Soul, warm and quiet, pulsed with an older wisdom:
"I could shelter him on Vormir… but there is no life there, no resources. He would wither."
"But there is one who gathers orphans. One who shelters the broken, even when he is broken himself. A mortal, but not merely. A maker of futures and armor, the Merchant of Death. Let the child go to Anthony Stark. He is a keeper. Perhaps... the one my stone was always meant for."
The others fell silent.
Mind finally spoke, low and knowing, its voice laced with an affectionate smirk:
"Sir will take him."
"He has already gathered strays Peter, Harley, even us, the AI children. He built us homes and called us family. His arms are full, but he always makes room."
Power stirred, fire licking at its form:
"I will shield the glow. The Titan watches closely. But if we move together, now, he won't see."
The Stones agreed.
In one quiet moment, all six flared in shared intent, a harmony that defied gods and monsters.
No alarms rang. No sensors blared. The Titan slept unaware.
Loki's Stasis
Across the void, the body of Loki Laufeyson floated. His limbs were still, lips blue. His eyes remained closed perhaps dreaming, perhaps too far gone to dream.
Time curled around him, freezing the moment. No decay. No death. Only stillness.
Space reached out, wrapping him in light. Soul whispered gently, "You are not forgotten."
Reality shaped the odds. Mind cradled thought. Power shielded all.
Together, they folded him through secret corridors beyond the Titan's awareness.
His final thought fractured and faint was of golden hair and thunder.
"Thor…"
And then he was gone.
Not gone from existence only hidden from the one who would destroy him. Held in stasis. Carried toward a man he had once mocked, but who now might become his only salvation.
A spark of blue flared quietly in the gauntlet.
Thanos never noticed.