"So. What exactly have you been doing all this time?"
Hermione asked about his time in the void.
She had given Loki two tasks: trick Thanos out of the Mind Scepter, and lure the Chitauri army to Earth. That was the direction. The execution was his problem.
Loki didn't bother hiding anything. He began from the beginning , falling deliberately into the rift, drifting through the void, being found by Thanos's people , and walked her through every step. All of it exactly as Hermione had predicted.
He talked. He watched her.
What he noticed was this: Hermione barely reacted to anything involving Thanos. The Chitauri, though , those she paid attention to. That told him more than her words ever had. Her knowledge of the universe ran far deeper than he'd imagined, and a Mind Scepter was not the end of what she wanted.
"You're... not lying to me, are you?"
The question came suddenly, once he'd finished.
His voice held hesitation. Longing. And underneath both, something that edged toward fear.
"You can really help me stop Ragnarok? Save Asgard — save my mother — and put me on the throne?"
He held her gaze, searching.
The visions from her prophecies hadn't left him. Asgard burning. Frigga falling. They haunted him when he slept and when he didn't. He needed them to be wrong. He needed her to make them wrong.
Hermione smiled, light and certain. "Of course I keep my agreements."
She let a beat pass. Something sly moved through her eyes. "But you know how this works. There's no such thing as a free lunch."
"You want something, you give something."
"You want more, you give more. Obedience earns rewards."
She tilted her head. "Are you ready to obey?"
Loki nodded.
The moment he'd entered the void and come face to face with Thanos and the Chitauri, every doubt he'd had about her evaporated. He still didn't understand why she was so invested in alien armies. But when he thought about those visions , Asgard in ash, his mother's body , he had exactly one option.
He would do what she said.
...
Hermione left Loki and stepped into the lab.
The atmosphere hit her immediately. Something was wrong.
The air had an edge to it, volatile, like a spark would set the whole room off. On the table sat a firearm with a design that was frankly absurd. And in the middle of it all, the team was at each other's throats.
Tony spotted her the instant she walked in. He moved like a man who'd just been thrown a lifeline, cutting across the room in three steps and jabbing a finger toward Fury's face.
"Perfect timing. Come sort this out. This one-eyed pirate has been secretly using the Cosmic Cube to build weapons of mass destruction behind our backs."
Fury's neck stiffened. His voice jumped an octave. "Stark, you hacked S.H.I.E.L.D.'s servers! I'm doing this for Earth's safety. No weapons, what exactly are we supposed to use against aliens?"
He let his gaze drift , just for a moment , toward Thor.
Thor caught it and erupted. "Hermione already told you! It's because of your meddling that Loki and the Chitauri came here in the first place!"
"Using the Cosmic Cube to build weapons sends a signal to the entire universe that Earth is armed and ready for a war!"
The argument devolved from there. Voices overlapping, getting louder, everyone talking over everyone else.
Hermione's frown deepened.
She could feel it, a strange, low-frequency pulse radiating from the Mind Scepter across the room. Subtle enough that she almost missed it. Almost. Her mental sensitivity had caught it just before it slipped past her entirely.
So that's his contingency, she thought.
Loki had planned for this. The Scepter was working on them, feeding their irritation, widening every crack until the whole thing split open.
The effect was obvious once she knew to look for it. Tempers flaring faster than they should, words hitting harder than intended. Even Steve , steady, measured Steve , had started frowning.
They were all sinking into it, too absorbed in the fight to notice that outside, a fighter jet was quietly closing in on the helicarrier.
Then she saw Banner.
His agitation had climbed past the point she liked. And somehow, at some point, he had picked up the Scepter.
The room went still.
Every person in it locked onto Banner, not moving, barely breathing, watching for any sign he was about to tip over the edge.
SLAP!
The sound was clean and sharp in the silence.
Hermione had crossed the room without anyone noticing. She brought her palm down squarely on the back of Banner's hand , not hard, just precise.
"Don't touch my Scepter."
Not loud. Completely firm.
Banner flinched, pulled his hand back on instinct. When he looked up, some of the fog had cleared from his eyes.
Everyone else stood in frozen silence.
Then the cold sweat hit.
She actually just, Did she not realize, What if that had brought the Hulk out,
Fury quietly dragged a hand across his forehead.
Working with Hermione required a reinforced heart. You never knew what she was going to do next, and the not-knowing was going to be the death of him.
The girl has no idea what she's playing with, Steve thought, exhaustion settling over him. You don't just provoke Banner like that.
He kept his tone even. "Hermione, that was reckless. This is a helicarrier. What you just did could have endangered everyone on board."
Tony was on it before Steve finished the sentence, stepping forward with the energy of a man personally offended.
"Popsicle, do you even know what's going on here?"
Steve's brow creased. "What?"
Tony looked at him the way you look at someone who's said something deeply stupid. "What do you think Hermione's actually here for? You think she's the mascot? Here to look decorative and give moral support?"
Steve hesitated. "Fury said she was here to provide expertise. Magical consultation."
Tony stared at him.
Then he laughed, a short, sharp sound with no warmth in it.
"Consultation. Right. You genuinely think the baldy just brought in a fifteen-year-old girl to be a walking encyclopedia."
He raised his voice, slow and deliberate, like he was explaining something to someone very far behind.
"Hermione's actual job on this flying wreck is to be the last line of defense. If Banner transforms, someone has to be able to hold the Hulk down. That's her."
Steve went quiet.
He looked at Hermione. The slight frame, the brown hair, the unimpressed expression. He turned the words over , hold the Hulk down , and they simply refused to connect to what he was looking at.
"Tony." Steve's voice cooled. "I know you two are close. But there are limits. You can't just defend her without any basis in reality."
Tony scoffed. "If not her, then who? You?"
He let his eyes travel over Steve , the uniform, the star, all of it , with the specific contempt of someone who has been waiting to say this for a while.
"Who's the one dressed like a parade float who still managed to lose a fight to a little Bambi?"
Steve's jaw tightened. "Put the armor on. We settle this properly, and we'll see who's useless."
"I don't need the armor for you."
"Put it on."
The explosion hit the helicarrier like a fist.
The floor lurched violently beneath them. Metal shrieked. A whole section of the deck gave way with a bone-deep crack, and everyone went down at once in a tangle of limbs.
",cough, cough—"
Steve got up first, grabbed Tony's arm. "Suit up. Now."
Tony was already moving. "Yeah. You win that one."
Fury's face had gone gray. He looked at the room , took in the half-collapsed floor, the chaos, the alert lights beginning to flash , and then his gaze landed on Hermione, standing exactly where she'd been standing, untouched inside a shell of magical shielding like nothing had happened at all.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Swallowed whatever he'd been about to say, turned on his heel, and walked out fast.
➤ Next: Captain, Your Aim is Way Too Off
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