Loki decided to begin before Thor arrived. Thor did not need to hear what came next. Or, rather, Loki did not want him to.

"I'm going to say a lot of things in a short space of time and I don't want any questions unrelated to the task in hand."

"Noted," replied Steve.

He took a deep breath.

"When Thor destroyed the Asgardian method of transportation to other realms, the Bifrost bridge, I was left hanging on the edge. I decided to fall. I fell down for miles and miles but then I landed on a desolate planet, Titan. Titan had been utterly decimated and was being ruled by a being called Thanos. Thanos is in control of The Other and the Chitauri. I was tortured and brainwashed."

Steve and Bruce gasped. Natasha and Clint simply looked sad. Tony went white and Rhodey quickly put a comforting arm around his shoulders. Rhodey understood now what Loki had meant about surviving falls from great heights.

"Before Thanos could manipulate me for his own ends, I managed to escape, with great difficulty. I fell further and landed here on earth. In my vision, Thanos expressed an urge to take revenge on me and to show no mercy. Thanos works to destroy realms but this is a personal vendetta against me. As such, I am going to do everything in my power to ensure the safety of this world."

The only one seemingly able to focus on the task at hand, Natasha, spoke up. Whether she was doing it to divert attention away from Loki's tragic and tumultuous past, he did not know. Either way, he appreciated the gesture.

"How will Thanos get here? Does he have a giant spaceship or something?"

"He can use the Tesseract to harness enough energy to open a portal to earth," Loki replied. "This is why the Tesseract is not for mortal men. Humans have shown, so far, that they are unable to harness its energy. To track Thanos, we need to track the Tesseract's energy signals but I have this sorted."

"How?" Questioned Fury.

"I have a friend on it," Loki answered simply. "Any other questions?"

Steve spoke up.

"So if Thanos is coming to earth, what can we do to stop him? I assume he's really powerful."

"Thanos will not come in person," Loki responded. "Thanos does not get involved in insignificant massacres. Instead he will send the Chitauri, presumably commanded by The Other."

"Do we know how we can destroy the Chitauri?" Clint inquired.

"The Chitauri may be sentient," said Loki, "But they operate under a hive mind intelligence. They have a command centre. If that is destroyed, all of the Chitauri will go down."

"Nice," commented Clint.

"The Chitauri do not take their command centre with them. It is their base, if you will. Commands are sent from there and the Chitauri receive these commands wherever they happen to be. The command centre could be galaxies away. It is not as easy as you think."

"Don't worry, Lokes," said Tony, having regained his voice, "Only Birdbrain here thought it was going to be easy."

When the other Avengers left to prepare themselves for battle, Tony stayed.

"Loki_"

"There's no point, Tony."

"If I'd known_"

"You never could have known," Loki replied sadly.

"But your reaction to my disappearance now makes sense."

Loki stayed silent.

"Your fear was even greater than mine. It's pretty logical... Given your past."

Loki rustled up a wry but insincere grin.

"Asgardian princes are used to kidnapping and torture," he said.

His blasé tone made Tony wince.

"They shouldn't have to be, especially not you," Tony said determinedly. "What are you going to tell Thor?"

"Nothing for now," Loki replied, emotions closed off once more. "Not before this."

"You only need to say the words," Tony said sadly, patting Loki on the arm before walking away.

Clint walked back in before stopping awkwardly before Loki.

"Hey man, I was just wondering if you could show me some of your skills," Clint said eagerly.

In his enthusiasm, he missed out on the reverential tone most used to address the God of Mischief but, to Loki, it was refreshing.

"Any skills or archery in particular?" Loki asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You can do archery?" Clint said, mouth falling open.

Loki shrugged.

"I may be a little rusty but yes, I would describe myself as an archer. The elves were my heroes growing up and they are both formidable archers and sorcerers."

Loki had adopted a nostalgic air. Clint was still staring at him, amazed.

"Elves as in the Lord of the Rings elves?" He questioned.

"Real elves," Loki remarked drily.

They made their way to the archery range on the Helicarrier and Loki showed Clint his archery prowess.

"Your archery skills... Wow."

Clint looked amazed.

"It's insane how you can manage that and I thought I was good!"

Loki smiled.

"I have been practising since I was a child," he replied gently.

"So have I!"

"A mortal childhood is eighteen mortal years long whereas mine was twenty-seven thousand mortal years long," Loki answered awkwardly.

"Wow," Clint breathed again.

Clint's childish curiosity warmed Loki. The agent ran off to no doubt fill Natasha in. However, Loki was interrupted in his musing by the ringing of his phone.

"Jane," he said, answering the call.

"The Tesseract is emitting loads of energy."

"Where is it directing it?"

"Towards Manhattan."

"Damn."

Manhattan, home to millions of people. Thanos had picked a good target.

"Thank you, Jane."

"What's happening?"

"Don't worry about it. Just, whatever you do, stay out of Manhattan."

"I_"

Loki hung up, ignoring the fact that Jane was still speaking. They had a battle to win.

*****

A.N. This chapter should tie up a few loose ends but if you have a question feel free to ask me!

Thank you for reading!