Chapter Text
Tony can say for certain, this is one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to him, and that’s saying a lot. So to say he was kind of freaking out was an understatement. And the imposing, one-eyed, Asgardian king was not helping.
“What is your reason for being here?” Declared the old-guy.
Natasha being ever level-headed stepped forward(Honestly what would any of us do without her). “Oh Gracious Allfather Odin,” Natasha drawled. “We have come here to ask for your assistance.” Natasha was one-of-a-kind at laying it on thick. And a few simple respectful words already made Odin’s pursed lip purse a little less.
“We come from a future that we wish to avoid. While testing our Time-machine, we were sent to this time.”
Thank goodness it was Natasha and not Tony speaking, it would take one sentence to send them all to the dungeon. Wait does Asgard even have dungeons?
“We attempted to resolve this issue on Midgard, but we were stopped by a security organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. They did not believe us and attempted to capture us, so we tried to take refuge in Asgard.”
The Allfather considered this for a moment. Steve looked ready to faint and Clint looked more broody than usual.
The next thing Odin said made Tony’s blood run cold. “Prince Loki.”
Tony hadn’t noticed the old foe and clearly his comrades didn’t either. Thor looked ready to cry, Steve straightened up, Clint’s broody face became rather pissed, and Bruce’s fist clenched slightly. Of course Natasha wasn’t affected as she probably noticed him already.
Odin continued, “Are they speaking with truth?”
They were royally screwed. One of their biggest enemies was going to be the decider of their fate. Which is never fun. Loki was a megalomaniac during New York and a constant shadow after. Tony didn’t want to think about what he was like before. But I guess now I don’t have a choice.
The Prince stepped forward, looked them up and down, stopping for a moment on Thor. Of course Thor didn’t notice as he was fighting back tears, the poor guy. He twitched his fingers twice and his eyes took up a slight green glow.
As he was doing this most of the Nobles(or at least Tony assumed they were) sneered slightly. Some chuckled to themselves and others scoffed with the person nearest to them. Clearly all their animosity was pointed at Loki, but Tony had no idea why. Maybe the god was always disliked, Tony wouldn’t blame them.
There was an odd tingly sensation in his brain. The serpent was reading their mind. All the other Avengers noticed this but didn’t say anything, each of them just had a tighter jaw. All but Clint. Clint looked like he was about ready to throw up. Thankfully he didn’t.
Loki’s eyes darkened deeply, he saw something that he didn’t expect. He blinked once and regained composure, then finally the trickster spoke up, “They are speaking the truth. They are from fifteen years in the future and everything they have said, so far, is true.” Tony was a tad shocked, he fully expected Loki to say they were space orcs coming to take the queen as a wife. At least the guy was honest in court. Tony added this to the incredibly small list of redeemable qualities.
“I see,” remarked the King, “Loki, continue to prevent untruthfulness.”
Great, more mind-poking.
“Yes Allfather,” responded Reindeer Games.
The nobles started up again. They were too far-away for Tony to hear. He would have Clint to lip-read but he was having a staring contest with the ground. But Tony was able to catch one thing, “All that silver-tongues good for.”
That is a very weird thing to say if you asked Tony. Past-Thor seemed to have noticed it as well because he shot the Noble a glare, which shut the prim-proper guy right up. The glare paired with the fact that the chatty Noble’s hair had started to frizz very slightly, in fact most of the court-people around him had a sudden case of static electricity.
Loki subtly looked at his brother and smirked. He then noticed something and quickly replaced his expression with a serious look and nodded his head in the direction of a woman. Past-Thor looked at the women as well and all of the floating hair seemed to drop quickly. Tony deduced that she was their mother.
“Why should we assist you?” asked the Allfather.
It was Steve now that spoke up, “Because if you don’t zillions of people will remain dead.” Oh lovely Steve, that was a great thing to say, but for pete's sake you worded it horribly. Odin didn’t really get it, “What do you mean by this, what kind of tragedy has occurred that you have resorted to time travel?”
“Have you heard of the Mad Titan Thanos,” Continued Steve.
The entire hall stilled at that.
“I Have,” reported Odin. The King pondered for a moment before the ichor drained from his face, seemingly coming to a conclusion. “Does he succeed in his quest?”
“He does,” Steve responded.
Odin looked to Loki, an unspoken question being asked.
Loki quickly regained a neutral expression, but he swallowed before he spoke. “These six come from a time where the Mad Titan has claimed all six Infinity Stones.” Odin looked to the ground, but maintained composure.
Past-Thor looked confused, “What are the Infinity stones?”
This time the Queen spoke-up, “Objects of great power, all were created along with the universe. Loki, would you mind providing a visual?”
Loki nodded, “Of course Lady Frigga.” Loki’s eyes glowed again. Though not as bright as when he was “lie detecting". He waved his hand in the air. An illusion suddenly appeared of the space stone. “Each infinity stone represents an aspect of the universe as we know it. Space, Reality, Time, Mind, Power, and Soul,” narrated the Queen. As she mentioned each stone, the illusion would be replaced by their respective infinity stone and container if necessary.
Tony was shocked by the sheer detail in each of the illusions. Everything was exact, down to the indents in the Mind stone and the screws in the Space stone’s container. Loki had clearly done his research on this topic. I guess it would be obvious that he did, especially considering his star-crossed romance with the tesseract.
“When united, they have the ability to alter the universe,”Lady Frigga explained as all of the rocks appeared at once in the illusion, “And Thanos has made clear that his motive is to kill half of the population.”
At that final statement, a colorful flash of light was created within the illusion. Tony looked at Loki, expecting him to look slightly tired. But the god looked entirely unfazed.
Young Pointbreak stared at the illusions remains in contemplation. Finally understanding the gravity of the situation. It was at that moment that Thor saw how similar Thor and his father looked. They both had the same thousand yard stare when thinking of something dire. Tony wondered if there are any physical similarities between himself and dear-old dad. He wasn’t religious, but he prayed there wasn’t.
Speaking of gods, Odin stood up and gripped his spear tighter, Gungnir he thinks it was called. Anyways Odin looked very eager to stab someone with Gungnir, and Tony didn’t think he was entirely safe from this fate.
“Asgrad will not let this future be!” dictated the King, “We will prevent it by any means.”
Now Tony wasn’t the most proud of this next moment, but you have to admit a lot of adrenaline goes away when a big, scary, fantasy king is declaring that he’s likely gonna kill a titan. So keep that in mind when you think about how I almost immediately said, “Oh thank fucking goodness!”
Also consider how that isn’t the worst thing I could’ve said, but seemingly it struck a nerve in the Allfather. He looked at Tony dead on, then looked at Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Clint, and finally Thor. He looked at Thor with such an intensity that it made almost everybody sweat.
“Who’s fault was it,” questioned the king.
That was a rough question. Honestly it was all of their fault(Besides Clint). Bruce couldn’t hulk-out, Tony couldn’t get the glove off, Natasha and Steve were thrown aside and couldn’t get up in time, Clint wasn’t even there so it wasn’t really his fault but Clint sure thought it was, and then there was Thor.
Out of everybody, Thor blamed himself the most. If he was an inch or two to the left or noticed that Thanos was raising his hand. This all may not have happened. That paired with what happened on the Statesman, Thor was in a deep hole of victim-blaming and survivors-guilt.
So naturally, Thor almost immediately spoke up. “It was my fault.”
The whole courtroom clearly wasn’t expecting that. Many Nobles put their hand on their mouth in shock, or to stifle snickers(Man these court-people were mean). Odin looked at the ground in shame, Frigga’s eyes began to pool with tears, and past-thor looked as if he was going to strike something with lightning.
That was until Loki Spoke up.
“That is completely untrue.”
Shock was a word to describe Thor’s face.
“The events were Thanos’s fault. If not for him, none of it would have occurred.”
Tony was wondering how the heck Loki knew all this for certain, but then Thor being the unstable and depressed man he was, interrupted this thought, and called out with tears in his eyes. “If I had not missed, Thanos would be dead and wouldn’t have killed all those innocent people!”
Loki was having none of it, “Did you snap your fingers brother? Did you uncover the Aether?”
The thing about the Aether was a new one.
Thor was crying at this point, Bruce was the only thing holding him up.
“Did you take the Tesseract? Did you dethrone Odin?”
Everybody in the hall gasped at that last one.
“All things you consider ‘your fault’ were just the conditions. You never took any willing actions to help Thanos. Therefore it is not your doing,” Loki finished.
Thor looked like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. Odin looked like fifty tons were placed on his.
Tony was shocked to say the least. One of the dire villains Earth had seen, had just defended and comforted his brother in front of a whole hall of people that supposedly hated him.
Asgard’s King decided to break the uncomfortable quiet, which was previously filled only by Thor’s subtle sniffles
“We must eliminate the threat,” fumed Odin.
The King looked ready to smite someone. And for some reason, he was looking at the six of them. The Allfather banged Gungnir on the ground and everybody stiffened. Loki, both Thors, and Frigga more than most.
“You six have not only disrupted the peace of Asgard!” Odin thundered, “But have proven to be unworthy heroes.”
Say what now.
“You have failed in an ultimate battle against a horrible villain. Then you disrupt the universe’s sanctity by traversing through time. Therefore Asgard will take action to keep Thanos at bay, and to keep you imbeciles out of it.”
So they were totally dead. Time to speak up and likely make things worse! “Oh great… Allfather.” Tony was almost 100% sure that he said it right and without any fault whatsoever, “We may have lost the big battle, but we have a plan to fix it, then ergo win the war! I mean, we literally invented a time machine without any magic to do so! ”
Some random noble snorted.
“Sure we made a little mistake while testing it, but we know exactly how to fix it! We just don’t have the tech! So if you’ll please let us use your supercool fancy stuff for like, three-days. We’ll be on our way, and to fix everything without changing the past too much.”
Odin looked ready to pop. Maybe he was offended by the use of ‘supercool’, or maybe he just wasn’t used to being spoken to without manners. Right before he was about to probably disintegrate us with pure anger, once again, Loki spoke up.
“Allfather If I may, these supposed foes have clearly dedicated themselves to fixing their mistakes, and preserving the wellbeing of their present. It would be unwise to rewrite their past, and our future without proper knowledge of the effects it would have.”
The room quieted for a moment. All eyes would transfer from the Allfather, to the Prince, and back again. The pressure was enough to squash a Chitauri army, but Loki didn’t look worried in the least. The god may be a jerk, but he knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted. Tony guesses that’s why the Nobles would sneer at his presence, he was a manipulative master. Just like they said, he was Silver-tongued.
It was very impressive.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the Queen clearing her throat. “I agree with Prince Loki. The risk of a worse future is too dire. We should send these six to the future, then wipe the memory of all present.”
Odin nodded, seemingly calmed by his wife’s steady and strong voice, “The Queen makes excellent points, we shall do as she says and free those from the future.” Okay wait, no disrespect to Lady Frigga, she seems awesome, and as much as he hated to admit it, this whole solution(besides the memory wipe) was Loki’s doing. He was the one that saved their skins, ironic isn’t it.
Gungnir was slammed on the ground once again, “The final verdict,” Odin boomed, “We shall assist in sending the accused to their present, and then, to prevent a paradox, erase this situation from our mind. Thor, show our visitors to guest quarters, we shall begin our works to send them back in the morning.”
And everything turned out fine! We won’t end up dying and we’ll get back to the future!(Movie Pun intended).
“All who will not be necessary workers on the ‘time travel’, stay and have the knowledge of the future removed. This meeting is adjourned,” finished Odin.