The Visit

The Game's Afoot!

Loki's shoulder ached.

No... not ached... hurt. Bad.

He had a nightmare the previous night but at this point, he was used to them. He had walked down to the hall and let the guards check his monitor before entering the living room. He had sat down at the kitchenette and Bruce had placed a plate of pancakes in front of him. That was when the aching started.

At first, it just felt like a sore muscle, maybe he had slept wrong. But as he ate, the aching grew and grew until he felt like he was going to faint from the pain. He clutched his shoulder and grimaced. He could feel hands on him and hear muffled words coming from his friends, but he couldn't make out what they were doing or saying.

Then... the pain stopped. Like waking up from a nightmare, the memory was still there, but the ache had receeded, mostly anyways. He opened his eyes to see Bruce, Bucky, Tony, and Natasha crowding around him to make sure he was okay.

"Loki, can you hear us?" Bruce asked.

Loki nodded. He pulled his arm out of the tunic he was wearing and almost gasped when he saw what had been hurting his shoulder. Of course, everyone else actually gasped at the sight.

On his shoulder was an angry red brand mark with the detailed letters of 'sv'.

"What the hell did that?" Nat asked as she gazed at the brand.

Loki couldn't believe it. After all this time and he was still on the run from... that thing. This must have been why the authorities had questioned them about the tesseract and him, something must have happened to alert them of tampering.

"It's him. He's looking for me, he knows where I am, and he will not stop until he has me and the stones."

Bruce looked at the poor god carefully. "Are you saying that Thanos did this? How would he be able to do something like that?"

"He has many mages with particular... skills he can use to his advantage."

"How can we stop him from hurting you?"

Loki took a deep breath. "You can't. Unless you kill him."

"Then let's kill him."

Loki looked at Steve, who had just spoken. "It's not that simple. He's a titan, and he's mad. It would be like trying to kill someone with Thor's strength, my tactician skills, and the resolve of all of you avengers combined. He has an army that would all kill themselves rather than betray him. If he even gets one of the stones, which he is trying desperately to do, he would be unstoppable."

Tony contemplated for a moment. "Then let's get the stones before he does. If they seriously make someone that powerful, we should be able to kill him if we have all of them. And if we have them then he doesn't."

Loki stood up. "That's a suicide mission. There are six stones. One is in Asgard, one is in the hands of the nova empire, one in the hands of the collector, one is in the hands of the sorcerer supreme, one in your friend's head, and the last has been lost for centuries. How, may I ask, do you plan on going about this?"

One of Thanos' children had found the map to the soul stone years earlier but as far as Loki knew, she lost it.

"We split into teams, we already know where Vis' stone is so we don't have to worry about that one. Loki, you seem to know a lot about these stones so you can help us figure out who's going to go after which one."

Loki mentally slapped himself and Tony. "And how do you intend on going to the other side of the galaxy? Not to mention, Bucky and I and still on house arrest so we wouldn't be able to do anything."

" We can figure that detail out." Loki gave Tony an incredulous look. "As for the whole house arrest thing, aren't there any stones on earth?" Loki nodded. "This is why I am the genius of the group. You two can just get that one. That or we could say you are going to Asgard if you need to go to space. We have options."

Loki had to admit, Wanda and Vision would probably be the best ones to talk to the sorcerer supreme, her being the only magic user besides him and the Vision being a stone guardian. His best bet was to go straight into the fire and ask Gamora if she knew where the soul stone was. He didn't know whether she still worked for the titan, but he had heard the einherjar in passing talking about a group of vigilantes, one of whom fit her description, so hopefully not. He would bring James with him just in case. Thor would definitely be the one who would have to get the tesseract, considering he's probably the only one even allowed back in Asgard. Bruce and Steve would have to be the ones to haggle with the Nova empire, being the only ones that could forseeably be diplomatic in the eyes of the Nova. That left Nat, Clint, and Tony to get the reality stone from the collector.

It seemed like a good plan. If everyone played their parts perfectly, they should be able to get all the stones and Thanos would never see them coming.

There was one problem though:

Where the hell were they going to get a spaceship?