"You know what?" Thor stood up and walked over to the study doors, "I think Loki needs to be involved in this conversation."

"Hey! You can't! Not without everyone agreeing on- oh, you already let him out."

"Why interrupt my reading, Thor?" Loki closed his book, "I was at the part where they found out that the flatulent dwarf faked his death."

"What in the nine realms are you reading?"

"Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident."

"I don't know what that is and I'm not going to ask," Tony rolled his eyes.

"Hey!" Cole dropped his constructed toy robot and it shattered, "That's my book! You took that out of my backpack!"

"Maybe I did, but I was just borrowing it. Not nearly as good as the first one if you ask me," Loki handed the silver book back to the child.

"The first one didn't have as many goblins," Cole replied.

"But it had a troll."

"This one has cooler inventions in it."

"Agree to disagree."

"Loki, we need you to join the grown ups now," Thor steered his brother over to the couches, "Tony has encountered a portal that took him to another realm!"

"Oh really?" Loki propped his chin up with his fist, "I'd thought after your trip into space with that missile you'd have had enough inter-realm travel, Stark."

Tony stiffened a little, but otherwise didn't react.

"How do you even know it was another realm and not some spot on Midgard that you've never seen before? Hmm?"

"I was curious about that also, Tony," Thor said, "Did your helm know?"

"In fact it did," Tony got up, went over to Cole's backpack and pulled out an Iron Man helmet. He plugged it into Thor and Jane's TV and everyone looked at it curiously as it lit up the display with both many different gauges and controls as well as a live view of whatever Tony pointed the helmet at.

"Friday, play 'Out of this World' footage."

The live video feed changed to a view of the camera zooming out of Tony's basement and onto his face as his car fell through a portal in his driveway. There was a fizz as he changed worlds and then it refocused on the land around him right before it fell into another portal and back into Tony's driveway. The loop continued with Tony turning the camera with each fall to show more of his surroundings.

Then the video ended with the car hitting the concrete of the driveway and the windshield shattering. Tony on the video yelped in surprise and he climbed out to see Pepper tapping her foot impatiently. Then it went black.

"It moved too quickly," Thor said, standing up and going closer to the screen, "Can you slow it down?"

"Friday, do as the man asks."

The footage played again, much slower and Thor, Loki, and Jane all crowded around the TV, taking in every detail. On the third time that the video showed the foreign place, Loki shook his head.

"Thor? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Wait…" Thor watched as the video entered the realm a fourth time, "Ah."

"What? Where is it?" Tony and Jane asked excitedly.

"The Dark World," both brothers replied, nodding.

"The what?"

"Svartalfheim," Thor replied grimly, "Home of the Dark Elves, once long ago."

"Over five thousand years ago," Loki crossed his arms, "During the last Convergence. Before they were all slaughtered. By their own doing."

"Elves? Convergence? Slaughter?" Tony stared at them, "Explain."

"Wait, wait," Jane disappeared into her study and came back with a stack of papers and a large print of a starry sky, "The Convergence wouldn't happen to have anything to do with stars aligning would it?"

"Thor," Loki grinned, "I know I've told you this before, but I truly think you picked the smartest Midgardian for your spouse. And certainly the most tolerable."

"Isn't she?" Thor smiled proudly.

"So it does have to do with the alignment of stars?" Jane all but dumped the coffee mugs off the coffee table as she spread out her picture of the sky. Tony caught the mugs before one of his favorite beverages could spill everywhere.

"No, the alignment of the realms," Loki pointed to the eight brightest stars on the map, "All of the realms will line up and the boundaries between them will thin. At the thinnest spots you will be able to fall between worlds if you aren't careful."

"So I fell into this Dark World place?" Tony asked, "And then fell back out again?"

"The portals are quite unstable and often line up above other portals that will send you back. It is lucky that it closed while you were on Midgard," Loki commented, "Or else you would be trapped on Svartalfheim."

"Tony?" Pepper said with a smile that promised a scolding.

"Yes dear?"

"Next time I tell you to get out of a magical portal," she narrowed her eyes at him, "You get out of the portal."

"Yes dear."

"If the Convergence is coming," Thor mused, "Then we ought to warn the Midgardians so they don't find themselves trapped in Svartalfheim."

"Jane," Loki said, "I know that Erik Selvig despises me, but do you think we could call him back from his studies in England so that he and I might discuss this?"

"I don't know," Jane looked to Thor and then back at Loki, "I mean, Erik really, really does not like you."

"I think if he and I were to work together then we might be able to find a way to determine where and when portals will open so that we can prevent people from falling through."

"I'll talk to him," Jane promised.

"Selvig is the kooky professor Loki mind controlled, right?" Tony asked, "The guy who built the contraption that allowed the Tesseract to open the portal?"

"Is Erik coming to visit?!" Tova exclaimed, running over to them, "Do I get to see Erik?"

"Maybe," Thor smiled at her, "He might."

"Yay! Erik is the fun-est! Last time he climbed up on the roof without his pants on!"

"Right…"

"It was so funny."

"I can't wait to meet him," Tony said.

"In the meantime," Thor turned to Loki, "Is there anything else we should be concerned about that might be brought on by the Convergence?"

"I don't think so," Loki looked at Jane's star charts again, "The history books say the Dark Elves are dead and that the Aether is well hidden. We shouldn't have to worry about a thing."

"Wonderful! I'm sure the Convergence shall pass quite peacefully then!"

A/N: Before everyone starts saying "but if you have Vision in your story and AoU has already happened then the Convergence can't happen because it came before AoU!" let me explain. I messed up the timeline of the MCU for this story on purpose. After all, it's supposed to be a few years in the future and I'm leaving Infinity War out of the picture for now even though this would probably take place after that on the real timeline. :P

So, to recap: this is in the future both for the Avengers and for us, but IW hasn't happened and Thor: The Dark World has only partially happened, if that makes sense. I don't think I've mentioned the Convergence anywhere else in this story, but if I have... eh, pretend I didn't? The Convergence is happening now.

Okay, thanks for reading me trying to cover my butt with made up logic! Hope you enjoyed the story! :)

Thanks for reading!