Epilogue: The Dawn of the New World

. . .

The newborn world was alone, but it was not lonely. It, who had since chosen the name Ego for its understanding of Itself, had begun to learn things about the growth and spread of life. From time to time as Ego wove its skin into new patterns and biomes, catching the seeds of life from where they glittered through the universe to land on his surface, it saw Her come to give Her first and last blessings. Death smiled each time the warm breeze tickled her in greeting, and she came and went in the peace that was her trade. Death kept her promises, and for that, Ego no longer feared her footsteps along its grass. Someday she would return for Ego itself, but that day would not be soon.

Ego stayed far away from the inner worlds, preferring for now that solitude it had slept in for so long. It was warm, it was safe, and familiarity had some comfort. But where it chose to orbit, the darkness of space seemed a little brighter where the stars gathered close. Perhaps in time it would collect a moon or two to itself for company, and perhaps it would then wonder if other great worlds had dreamed for parts of their lives, or if there was only Ego. It did not worry, it only lived in curiosity.

For now, Ego was content. Even joyful, among those long stretches and grand eons that would be its life. The universe spun on, and so did it. There was so much to learn, and it treasured and collected all these new lessons close to its rich magma core, where more future shards of citrine had their first mineral beginnings.

Ego dreamed awake, and it was good.

. . .

Irani Rael sighed as she received the latest reports on Sanctuary's autopsy. She was exhausted, but she also knew she wasn't going to get sleep anytime soon. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, addressing the officer seated next to her. "Play it for me again. I don't know that I'm gonna get tired of watching some of that."

With a nervous laugh, the officer queued up the various minutes of footage rubbernecking – and secretly opportunistic - space-truckers with deep-lens tech and, meanwhile, her own Nova Corp fleets had caught. Tivan Taneleer had been late to the party those humans and their alliance had brought to Thanos's doorstep, but when he'd finally arrived, he'd made up for his mistake of timing with his usual hammy flair. Fourteen custom-fitted mining ships, twelve destructors, and whatever the hell the chained up space-dragon thing was had been recorded tearing Sanctuary apart with professional intensity and efficiency. The job took less than three hours, half the better pieces of junk disappearing into Knowhere's coffers instead of the hands of a fleet of annoyed cargo haulers. A less well-verified report had Taneleer acquiring the insensate but somehow still living body of the Mad Titan who had recently held sway there.

Queries on the matter to her allies within Earth's SHIELD and to the crew of the Milano had amounted to a shrug. They didn't care overmuch about the fate of Thanos. He was, for all intents and purpose, gone from the field and everyone involved was that much happier for it. If he were to become a conversation piece, so be it. Gamora in particular had said a few unrepeatable things on the topic before cutting off the channel with vicious curtness. That recording still had agonized sobbing in the background. Sound engineers identified the noise as Nebula, another well-known criminal associate, but that seemed impossible. In either case, Rael kept the Milano tagged on their patrols, but ordered no current interference. They'd done their part to help, they could be left alone for now.

The important thing was that there would be no more culls, no more torture, no more genocidal incursions against helpless inner worlds for whatever had been deemed as collectible to the leadership. Now the Corp hunted down the remaining men and woman that had sworn their loyalties to the shadow 'king' of Sanctuary. Mercenary corporations who'd lost their dominant paycheck, a handful of would-be generals. More than one had sworn lasting vengeance against all those who had stood against Sanctuary to pull it down into ruin.

For now, no one worried at this much. Emotions ran hot at the galactic rim. Nova Corp would watch over it until the end of time, if necessary.

Irani Rael chuckled as the chained beast casually kicked free one of the spires of Sanctuary, revealing the ruined ancient warship within that had once been its structural core. "I'm going to want a personal copy of this."

Her officer looked up at her with an unspoken question. Nova Corp's leader grinned back. "For future presentations."

. . .

Wanda stroked the ruined forehead of the stiff robot body, looking at the way her skin contrasted with Vision's perfect vibranium red. His head was laid gently upon her knee, and he still looked as if he were only sleeping, lashes softly brushing against each other. She looked up to be sure she was alone, as Steve had promised her. Then from her pocket she took the citrine gem Death Herself had granted her to carry back.

She bit her lip as she carefully pushed some of the wires just inside his skull back to where it seemed like they should go. Stark had mentioned something about bare contacts being necessary, but it didn't sound like she had to meddle with much. Another gentle stroke, and one more, and things looked healed enough. Then she pressed the gem to the hole high atop Vision's brow and looked up at the New York sky beyond the broad window to see if the promise held true.

Vision did not need to breathe, but sometimes he did, to be that much more human. She felt his chest rise and then fall in that soft, living rhythm. She looked down to watch those red lids part with a flutter, the mechanical but still oddly human eyes focusing, unfocusing, and then sharpening to see only her.

Wanda smiled at her friend, filled with so much joy at not losing one more loved soul, that her own eyes began to fill and blur. "Good morning, Vision. Would you like to watch the sunrise with me one more time?"

His hand came up to touch a dangling strand of her hair, and he smiled. "Good morning, Wanda. Yes, I very much think I would. I think it will be a fine one."

He didn't seem quite so heavy now, and she helped him sit up by her side. She did not let his hand go as the soft morning light began to fill the sky.

. . .

In SHIELD's still-secret facility, there were still plenty of places to sneak out and get some fresh air between the various emergencies and horrorshows that marked their day-to-day lives and jobs. Coulson ambled his way up to one of these with a mug of fresh hot coffee in each hand, a small rooftop nook with a series of benches carved with the names of past agents who couldn't be put on the more public monuments. The nook also came with a great view of the eastern sky.

Loki sensed him arriving instantly, looking back at him over the shoulder of a buttoned black shirt with a small and even blacker SHIELD eagle half-visible high on one bicep. He still looked exhausted, deep and darkened patches visible under each eye in a way that blessedly didn't make him look anything like the mad, vengeance-driven demigod that had fallen out of a portal years ago. He looked instead content in a way Coulson had never seen before. He wouldn't talk about what he'd done with the gauntlet, but it didn't matter. One look at his face told the story. It was over. For good, this time.

"Brought coffee." Coulson unceremoniously shoved the mug with the incredibly upset looking cat printed on its side at the weirdest friend he'd ever made, dropping onto the bench next to him when Loki took it gingerly. "Look, if I'm gonna deliver breakfast, you get the bad mug."

"Fitz constantly declares his amused love for this gods-awful thing, why doesn't he just keep it in his quarters?"

"Thinks it's funnier this way."

Loki took a sip of his drink. "Well. He's not wrong, I suppose."

That sat in silence for a while as they sipped and waited for the thin line of orange along the distant horizon to become full light. "Galaxy's still flipping its lid over the aftermath. There's at least four big names the Corp has identified as future threats. More old generals of Thanos, some kind of order he was rumored to be setting up as a contingency force. They're gonna send a brief over at some point, see if any one of them rings a bell with you."

"I only knew Corvus Glaive. But I'll take a look, regardless. Least I can do."

"Did you know he had a wife?"

Loki shuddered, lips pulling back to show teeth gritted in open disgust. Corvus the torturer, with his fishbelly skin and worming lips. He unwillingly imagined a rose's stem bit through the teeth hidden by that awful grey sneer, tried to consider what else a creature like that might consider courtship. "Yeeeeegh."

"She's one of the four. I guess this is kind of the last straw for her, with Thanos going down. She and Corvus weren't close by the time he got himself killed by that Ronan guy, but she's still notably pissed about the whole deal. I figure we can cross her off the file of stuff you knew about. Also we're supposed to be getting a copy of the Sanctuary pull-down by the Taneleer Collective. Figure we're good for movie night, Rael indicates it's a hell of a show. I'm getting the good Amish popcorn out for that baby." That got a laugh, nearly causing Loki to slosh his mug.

Phil took a breath and kept going. "That's not even touching the storms we got brewing here. Sokovia Accords are still go, we're looking at unrest coming over that. We got the Inhumans and the remnants of the security council. We got two unconfirmed reports out of Europe that make me think we're not done with Victor von Doom – plus Lucia's still in recovery offsite. She might be at that for years, but when she's a little more stable, she's gonna dump everything she ever knew about Latveria. May's working with her, and once Natasha gets the Avengers debriefed and archived over this shindig, she's gonna go help out. We also got some kinda snarl brewing with the Wakandan diplomats."

"There's still The Hand. Quinn remains loose. Roxxon took a bite but ultimately lost little ground." There was Lorelei out there, too, as a mystery. Loki knew she'd escaped Sanctuary. For now, he knew nothing more than that.

"Yeah, vigilantes up the ass these days, too. The Hell's Kitchen PI woman, that was a kick. I don't know how this Kilgrave jerk got under our radar, we'll have to double down on general observation going forward. Strange says something's gone awry since the soul-flood – the hell does that even mean – created an imbalance of some kind. Death said she wasn't worried, but he still kinda is. He thinks there's more problems coming. Muttered something about The Book of the Vishanti fluttering alive or whatever. Says it means the Darkhold's dreaming, too."

Loki yawned, leaning back on the bench and using his feet stuck against the lip of the roof to balance himself. He sounded unconcerned. "So, all is well, all is normal, all is utter ruddy chaos."

"Yeah. The universe has been saved, but we still have total job security around here in the galaxy's trouble-riddled backwater." Coulson laughed and drained half his mug, trying to not think about how whenever one problem resolved, seven more popped up. A little too Hydra for his state of mind right now.

"Nobody ever admits it to me straight out – not you, not Koenig, not the HR help desks. I'm quite certain we qualify for vacation time." Loki gestured at his friend with his mug, more than a little openly perplexed. "I just ripped up my entire life and put it back together to save all your arses. The least we could do is grant me a three-day weekend with which to enact some minor personal recovery. I'm tired, Coulson. Look at me. I've got bags under my eyes."

"Tell you what, we'll compromise and take the rest of this weekend off." Coulson tried to balance himself the way Loki had, nearly fell. He covered it by wiggling his butt into more comfortable position. Beyond the rim of the rooftop they sat on, beautiful green tree tops swung lightly in the warm morning air in ignorance of their mortal lives. "Hey, so, what brought you up here, anyway?"

Loki smiled, an odd, quiet little expression. He fiddled with the mug, clasped now between his hands on his lap. "The last time I was given an opportunity to regard the dawn and all the hopes such a sight might bring, I was too consumed with the coming nightfall. I think that was a mistake on my part. This morning seemed as good as any for a beginning in which to remedy that."

Phil nodded, understanding. He swung a foot idly, watching the distant sun rise further and further to mark what was going to be a long, pretty blue day with only this current soft, warm wind carried along with it. A very good day to watch a new morning, and to know that everything in the universe was going to be all right.

Next to him, Loki leaned forward with a slight frown. He put the ugly mug on the edge of the rooftop and out of his way, folding long arms together for him to rest his chin on. His eyes watched the sun's slow passage through the drift of clouds, the skin of his high, fine brow tightening in consideration. When he spoke, his voice was dry and heavily weighted with his signature sardonic bitterness. "Phil?"

"Hmm."

"It's Sunday, Phil. There is no weekend left."

Director Phil Coulson saluted his friend with his empty coffee mug. "Yep."

"You little human bastard."

"Yep. I'll see you next at briefing tomorrow morning. Seven sharp."

Loki tilted his head to meet his friend's grin with a wry smile of his own. "Tomorrow morning, then, I suppose. Since we've got one coming, after all."

The sun continued to rise above the sound of their mixed laughter, and this was not the day it would stop shining over their small but interesting lives.

The End...

With Postscript to Follow

. . .

And the shame, was on the other side
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be heroes, just for one day

We can be heroes.

~ "Heroes," David Bowie, 1947-2016

. . .

March 5th, 2016. All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want.

. . .

Just a couple quick notes here because dear god the next one:

I doubt the Infinity War in the real MCU is going to bear much resemblance to the events here, which is why I'm in a sense okay with running down this predictive route. I don't actually like trying to guess the upcoming canon, nor am I out to spoil the fun, and I've never done it before in fanfic quite like this. So, I deliberately made some choices that are going to be pretty off base. I made a few I'm surer of, though. We'll see if they pan out.

The final Codex short, With Postscript to Follow, will be published in its two-chapter entirety on Monday. It contains an incredibly long writer's epilogue that you can happily skip. I'll say it then, too – you don't have to read any of it if you don't want to and leave it all right here for now. It's bittersweet, if, I think, ultimately happy. It may not even be the last story I write for this version of Loki (but it may well be, too). But it's the end of the arc Loki started ages ago in 'A Clear and Present Loki', if not the end of his tale, and it's right that the arc should have that kind of seal on it before I update the list on and tick the little mark that says Complete on the AO3 series file.