The King and The Lionheart (Loki fanfic V:1)

The Edge of Glory Part 11

       We go the the main floor and find Stark passed out on the couch and Thor waiting for everyone else to join us. Thor starts rattling off information before we can even greet each other "Barton and Romanoff should be here within the hour, Dr. Banner should be here in about two hours, and I'm not sure when Captain Rogers should be here. Apparently other people will be joining us too."

So we wait around until agents Romanoff and Barton join us. They both shake everyone's hand, or at least everyone that's awake as Stark is somehow able to sleep trough the noise that we're making. Romanoff and Barton start whispering to each other soon after arriving while glancing every now and then in my direction. "What the hell are they looking at?" I mumble to Loki but he just shakes his head in confusion.

After a moment the extremely tense silence is broken with the sound of soldiers filling the room and someone barking commands. Stark wakes up and soon everyone is yelling things at each other. The soldiers point their weapons at Loki and it dawns on me that these are agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Barton and Romanoff weren't looking at me, they were looking at Loki. "Let him go!" I scream as they detain him but Thor holds me back. I try to fight against him but Thor's too strong and doesn't let me go.

Why does he have his hand up, why isn't he resisting? I keep telling them to let Loki go. Stark understands what's going on and he doesn't stand in their way, not that I thought that he would. In their mind Loki was acting on his own whims when he destroyed Manhattan and killed all those people. He's gone in an instant. Thor lets me go and I run out of the room trying to find them but they're gone, as if they weren't even here.

Loki had to know who they were as well, that's why they let him go. He knew that if he wanted to make up for things he didn't even do he had to go with them. I hear Thor pleading with agents Barton and Romanoff to release Loki. I walk back in and Thor takes a step towards me, probably to reassure me, but I put my hand up to stop him. "Get me on the phone with Fury." I glare at the agents.

"Fury is busy-" Barton starts but I cut him off.

"Does it look like I care? Get him on the phone now!" I demand but before one of them can continue to deny me this comfort Romanoff's phone starts to ring. She takes one look at it before handing it to me. Fury. "Why did-?"

"I told you to deal with him since he's Thor brother and he wasn't supposed to set foot here ever again. You broke our agreement and now he's dealing with the consequences for destroying an entire city," Fury says with his strong, no nonsense voice.

"Look I'm sure that your people have already filled you in about the Thanos situation, if we are able to deal with him would you let Loki go? You'll have both Thor and I fighting for our planet

"I'll think about it," He says hesitantly and hangs up. I know that he won't let Loki go, but I allow myself to have hope. Maybe if we're able to defeat Thanos Fury will release Loki, or maybe while he's in custody he'll be able to show Fury that he's changed. I hand the phone back to Romanoff and know that we won't be friends any time soon if at all. Not Barton either for that matter.

As the rest of our party comes in everyone gets reacquainted but the tension in the room doesn't go away completely. Banner doesn't say anything but he can't stop fidgeting, Captain Rogers picks arguments with Stark over small things. A girl with a red leather jacket shows up and introduces herself to me as Scarlet Witch, she seems shy but nice enough. A man that seems to be friends with Rogers introduces himself with two names; Sam Wilson and the Falcon.

As someone rather robotic named Vision appears I lean over and whisper to Thor "Just how many people are showing up, I thought this was just an Avengers thing?" Thor quietly explains that these people are new Avengers. I watch them angrily, knowing that I'm going to have to work with them if we have any hope of protecting everyone I love. To me some of the people surrounding us either look like children or don't look very competent at all.

Is this really the team that's going to be able to defeat someone who has at least one infinity stone in his possession. "So now that we're all together, what exactly are infinity stones?" Romanoff asks when everyone get settled on a couch or at least nearby.

Thor looks at me, I used to have a lot more time for my bookworm needs so he assumes that I probably know. Luckily for him he's right, well, kind of. "Before any of the realms came into existence there were six properties with infinite proportions. When everything exploded into existence these six singularities become so concentrated that they formed into these six stone, or at least that's what the main theory is. The six stones are space, mind, reality, power, soul, and time. We know that Thanos has one; mind."

"Do we even know what they look like?" Stark asks and I look over to see him draped across the couch.

I roll my eyes at him before thinking about what he asked. "The Aether was probably one," I muse as I look at Thor for confirmation, which he gives. "That one's in the possession of someone called the collector, he wouldn't exactly give it up easily."

"Unless Thanos offered to trade something of equal or greater value," Thor counters.

"Something of equal or greater value than an infinity stone? Yeah, not likely," I argue but deep in my mind I know that if Thanos has as much power as we've seen him have, it is in the realm of possibility that he could trade for one. Or take it by force.

"So what are we going to do?" The girl that calls herself a witch asks. We look around at each other, trying to come up with some kind of plan.

"We prepare, train those who aren't proficient in combat, suit up," Romanoff says as if this is an good explanation of a plan of what to do. I sigh trying to calm my anger at her and her friend. If I was in their position I probably would've done the same thing, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. In this situation I know I have to trust them, kind of hard to do after they look Loki away.

Stark shows up to the training floor. Romanoff pairs off with Maximoff right away, showing the Scarlet Witch some tips and tricks for hand to hand. I watch as Stark moves over to a corner to start fiddling with his armor. I realize that he reminds me of Fandral, just a lot less honorable and chivalrous. Barton stand next to me watching everyone find something to do.

I try to ignore him but he annoyingly decides to speak. "I'm sorry we had to take him away, I know if anyone hurt my family I'd tear them apart. But if we make exceptions for someone like him, then where do we draw the line?"

I'm silent for a moment, thinking about what he just said. "I understand but at the same time he wasn't in his right mind." He watches me with curiosity so I continue. "He was under the control of Thanos with the mind stone, he doesn't exactly want anyone to know. A pride thing I'm guessing."

"I'm sorry but we have to stick to the rules that we make, no matter the case," He reasons. "However, with this information maybe I'll be able to get you a few chats with him." He walks over to Romanoff to also try to help Maximoff.