Loki's New Endgame

Chapter 6

"Avengers!" Steve yells.

As everybody prepares themselves, making the most of these few seconds of semi-peace they have until their demise, Loki just stares at the Captain incredulously. They're still calling themselves that? God, he killed Phil Coulson, like, a decade ago. Get over it.

Loki takes a few steps backward, shifting away from Thanos as subtly as he can. He's already done his part. He's done more than his part, especially for a fight they stand no chance of winning. Their army is no match for Thanos's power, even if nobody else sees it.

So when Steve says, "Assemble" with far more drama than necessary and everyone around him charges forward, Loki teleports out of the way. He returns to the landing he'd left not long before, and he finds himself standing next to Scott Lang once more. The man is fiddling with some control panel on his suit, though Loki's sudden reappearance draws his attention.

"I thought you were helping them!" Scott hisses.

"I am," Loki says. He slowly lowers himself to the ground, groaning with each small movement his body wishes he'd never made. He peers out over the field, watching the chaos unfold below. "Where is the Gauntlet?"

"I don't know," Scott says. He puts a finger to his ear. "Guys? Where's the Gauntlet?"

Loki looks at him expectantly. He wishes he had an earpiece. How he'd love to be a fly on the wall in their conversations.

"Bruce has it," Scott says. He pauses, listening to whatever sounds are coming from his com. "Guys, that wasn't our only time machine." He pulls out some sort of... weird... mechanical... stick thing... God, Midgardian technology is weird. But when he presses the button on the top, a musical horn sounds, its ridiculous song ringing through the field.

"What is that?" Loki asks.

"A time machine," Scott says. "We're bringing the Stones back where they came from."

"Ah." Loki nods. "I assume I don't get to keep the Space Stone, then?"

"Doesn't look like it," Scott says. He shrugs awkwardly. "Sorry."

"It's fair enough," Loki says. He doesn't have a whole lot of use for it, anyway. "Where is this time machine?"

"Uh..." Scott looks around, then puts a finger to his ear, listening to what they're saying. To Loki, he says, "Far away and dead," then tells whoever's on the comm, "Maybe ten minutes?"

A fly had been buzzing around, but Loki hadn't paid much attention to it. There are more important things going on than insect life. But then the fly grows, and a human woman is standing in its place. She puts a hand on Scott's back, and they share a small smile.

There's a brief pause, then the woman says, "We're on it, Cap."

"Wait, real quick," Scott says, "can you fix my suit? I can't..."

It takes Hope approximately 15 seconds to do what Scott had been struggling with since the building collapsed. Then they both shrink to the size of bugs, because that's apparently something that happens frequently these days. She grabs him mid-air, and they fly off. Loki watches them for as long as he can, but soon they're out of sight, too small to be seen.

Loki shakes his head to himself. God, he's so confused. Who was that? And how does everyone else have an earpiece? He's feeling a bit left out. He may be able to see everything that's happening on the field from this vantage point, but he'd like to hear what the plans are, too.

He's trying to look for the Infinity Gauntlet. As far as he can tell, there is no possible way they are going to survive this, but as long as Thanos doesn't get the Stones, the world may keep on spinning. So he tells himself that as soon as he catches sight of that hulking green man carrying the most powerful thing in the universe, his eyes aren't leaving him until he knows he's safe.