(A/N - It's been quite some time since I posted, but I got stuck writing this chapter, so... Anyway, thanks for all your support guys! I honestly never thought that this story would get so many reads, but I'm soooo happy :D )

CHAPTER 27

"LOKI!"

The god pretended to not have heard his name being called out in what seemed to be, anger. Anyway, the artificial intelligence operating the place would notify the Avengers as to his whereabouts. He tried to find some peace and quiet before a pack of angry Avengers descended upon him like a pack of hungry wolves. He inhaled deeply just as footsteps crunched the gravel somewhere to his side. Break time was over.

The first one to speak was a red faced, fuming Clint Barton. "How dare you?"

"Very easily." Loki answered smugly as Thor face palmed and he made himself comfortable on the soft grass of the lawn he was lounging on. He couldn't really resist replying, now could he? It was too good an opportunity to give up.

"When …?"

"Last night. They are quite delightful." Loki added under his breath, "Unlike their parents."

"Stay away from the children!"

"How did you even get the ants here?" Scott looked at the others as they all looked at him incredulously. He shrugged and said, "It's important, okay?"

But it was really Laura Barton, who caught Loki's attention with, "You let them have ice cream before bed?!"

"Excuse me?"

"They are not supposed to have ice cream before bed!"

"Honey, that's not really the issue here…" Clint trailed off as his wife turned to glare at him.

"I will keep that in mind."

"No, you won't!" Clint gritted out while Laura said simultaneously, "You better."

"He will not be meeting with the kids. At all!"

Loki rolled his eyes and got up from the ground where he had been lounging. "Are the children in any way, harmed?"

Clint stalked close to Loki and spat out, "I don't care if they have not been harmed. I will not have you close to my children and that is final! I let you roam around here. That should be more than enough."

"Then perhaps, you should tell your children that." Loki nodded towards the children who had crept up on them, and walked away, trying to find another place where he could lounge in peace and think further about his plan of action.

It took the children about an hour of groveling, pouting, emotional blackmailing and puppy dog eyes to convince their parents/guardians to let them mingle with Loki.

"Think this'll work?" Scott asked nervously as he crouched behind a desk and peeped over the top to see Tony fiddling with the red and gold gauntlet he had completed only hours before. A part of him wondered why everything that Tony created was red and gold. Did the guy not like any other color scheme? Personally, Scott found it a bit gaudy, but then that was just his opinion.

"Hopefully." Bruce said as he performed some last minute checks on the programs set to capture the gauntlet's reaction during their test run. Creating the gauntlet was the easy part, making sure it actually was strong enough to hold on to the stones, now that was tricky. The younger prince had informed them that the only way the gauntlet would ever be powerful enough to handle the stones was if it had been forged using a dying star and since Eitri had refused to help them out and they had no way of using a dying star (how did one even use that?), Loki had proposed that he and Thor push as much of their power as possible into the gauntlet and see if it still stood after it. This was their first test and honestly, Bruce wasn't all that optimistic. So much of their work was based on theorizing that none of it seemed possible and Loki, with all his skeptical looks, wasn't exactly the picture of confidence.

"Everyone ready?" Tony asked as he walked backwards to the red painted line and stood just behind it next to Shuri and her computer. Both of them let their suits cover them, Tony in his updated Iron Man suit and Shuri in a modified Black Panther suit.

Shuri looked around and nodded as she pressed a button on the screen. "The shields are up." As she said that, all around the perimeter, along the red line painted on the floor, a blue force field went up, covering the entire room, ceiling to floor. Everyone except Thor and Loki were behind the shield and hoping that the gauntlet would not blow up.

Thor gave the others a thumbs up and grinned at Loki, who was shaking his head at him in annoyance. Together, the brothers brought their hands up and focused their power and energy towards the gauntlet on the table between them. Tendrils of electricity ran up and down Thor's body as blue and white power rushed out of him and into the gauntlet. While his was a big display of power, Loki's was a quiet one. There were no physical markers of his magic but they all could feel it in the air. The only show of power was the green and gold beam transferring from his hands into the gauntlet. Shuri kept one eye on her computer screen and one on the brothers in front of her and nudged Tony as things started heating up.

"Uh-oh." Both Tony and Bruce said at the same time and looked at each other. Bruce spoke up, "Gauntlet's not gonna last."

"Nor is the shield."

A few moments later, the Avengers were as far away as the lab would allow them to be and the gauntlet started shuddering in its place. Loki sighed and signaled Thor to stop. Once the residual energy had dissipated, the others gathered around Loki, who was examining the gauntlet with a frown.

"What went wrong?" Rocket asked.

"It's not strong enough and we need more energy." Loki muttered and made a few changes to the design that Tony, Rocket, Nebula and Shuri had perfected over the last couple of days.

"More energy?"

"Our combined powers are still no match for the stones put together. They contain the power of the entire universe, all of them, within them." Loki explained as he shoved the sheets of paper at Tony. To Tony, he said, "Get on with it" and walked away.

Tony sighed and examined the papers and inputted the changes to his existing design and everyone walked away, knowing that it would take some time before they could run another test.

It continued in such manner for the next few days, where they would test the modified gauntlet and Loki would declare it unfit and then make a few changes and disappear. Sometimes he would disappear off world and come back with a new, stronger metal or sometimes with a better way to go about the whole thing. They continued to run tests after each modification, sometimes resulting in an explosion within a few seconds of the test starting and sometimes it would hold out for half a minute before exploding. It was their eighth test which was mildly successful.

Bruce sighed as he ran the usual tests on the programs while Shuri and Tony were already in position, with their suits protecting them. Clint and Natasha had opted to stay as far away as possible and still monitor the progress, especially after the last test where Natasha had been thrown into the wall behind her and hurt her shoulder quite badly. Clint himself had only survived the test because he had been crouching next to Scott and Scott had barely managed to hold on to him as the gauntlet had exploded spectacularly. Rocket, covered head to paw in bubble wrap had positioned himself between Nebula and Rhodey and clutched both their arms. Loki, Thor and Wong stood around the gauntlet as the shields went up for the eighth time since they started the whole process. According to Loki, they needed to test it against more power and so Wong had volunteered to use some of the older artifacts at his disposal for the test.

At some unspoken cue, the three threw their power at the gauntlet in front of them in unison. From the get go the armored glove shook with the power being poured into it and for a moment everyone thought that this would be yet another failed test but then it stabilized and Bruce grinned as it remained stable even after forty five seconds. By the one minute mark it started to tremble once again but Loki cut off the power by surrounding the gauntlet with a shield of his making and soon Thor and Wong stopped themselves.

"So?" Shuri asked as soon as the shields were down.

"This will do." Loki said with a nod as he watched the gauntlet absorb the swirling power in the small shield that he had created. "It needs to hold out only until someone can complete the wish and snap. That should not take much time."

"Doesn't it need to hold on from the time the first stone is put in it till the snap is done?" Tony asked.

"Yes, which is why we need to be quick about it." The prince answered as he rubbed his wrists. "You will have less than one minute to complete the whole process. That is about the maximum time limit that the gauntlet can keep itself together for."

"One minute is being optimistic, brother." Thor said gruffly. "We will probably have half a minute at best."

"Half a minute," Tony parroted, "no pressure then."

"Remind me what happens if we are unsuccessful." Scott asked with a long drawn sigh.

"We lose the stones. Forever." With that Loki walked out and left the Avengers staring at each other.

"All signs are still showing that he is somewhere in F-32." Nebula said from where she was crouched over the small computer screen.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Rocket asked.

Tony looked over at the residence building and said, "We'll leave tomorrow." If something went wrong, he wanted to spend one last day with Pepper in peace. The others obviously caught on to the unsaid words and agreed quickly. They too wanted to spend time with the loved ones.

Clint smiled bitter sweetly at the children as they continued pestering Loki to show them more tricks, not like the prince seemed to mind. He was only mellow when he was around the children. At first when Clint had found out that the children were mingling with Loki and following him around everywhere, he was equal parts disturbed and worried, but after an entire day of creeping around the compound, following the children and their new hero, he settled down, just a bit. It still irked him but he allowed it. At this moment, somehow it didn't matter. He was getting to see his children laugh and joke around and he wanted to keep that image in his mind forever, even if the reason for such joy was his once enemy.

He felt rather than saw Laura come up beside him and felt content. If this was going to be the last time he was seeing his family, he wanted to remember them as being happy. Being the understanding person that she was, Laura immediately picked up on his mood and called the children. A heavy weight settled in her chest as she watched Clint pick Nate up and she managed to smile despite her thudding heart.

Steve stared at the framed picture on the wall in front of him, not seeing it as such but not being able to move ahead either. He remembered that day as if it had been yesterday. It had been a pleasant day and one of the few days when the Avengers were not required to save the world. Those days had been far and few as it was. The main reason why the day had been so special was that Thor had been visiting the compound, having been in the area. They all had just lazed around and watched Clint, Wanda and Vision bicker over the proper recipe for some dish that no one had ever heard of. Before Thor had had to leave once again on his self-appointed job of finding the infinity stones, Stark had insisted that they all take a group picture. The only one missing was Bruce, but by then it had been far too long without any proof of life and frankly, they all had been losing hope of ever finding him. Still, the day had been a memorable one.

The soldier felt a lump settle in his throat as he looked at the smiling face of Sam, Wanda's grin and Vision's attempt to keep a straight face. Someone had cracked a stupid joke, probably Tony or Thor. He missed them something fierce. Missed Sam's good natured bickering with everyone, missed Vision's various attempts at being as close to human as possible but somehow always ending up irritating Tony when he didn't use doors to walk in and out of rooms and missed Wanda using her magic to make things disappear right when someone was looking for it and then blaming it on Clint or Sam. He didn't know for how long he stood there but when he became aware of what he was doing, Steve sighed and trekked back to his room. He needed the rest even if he didn't want it. Honestly speaking, he was getting tired of the whole 'hero' routine. Clint had the right idea – to quit all this. Once this fight was over, Steve was retiring. He was sure of that.

Lost in his thoughts of a hopeful future, the super soldier walked into his room and emptied his pockets and removed his watch out of habit. It was only a few minutes later that he realized that there was something different in the room. The colors were the first thing he noted. It had been far too long since he had seen those colors near his person. The combination of blue, red and white made him smile involuntarily. Slowly, he moved towards the round shield that had been with him through all these years. It somehow looked better, freshly painted perhaps. Even then, he could see the scratches that Peggy's bullets had left on it, all those years ago. He had refused it when Fury had suggested that they had the ability to make it better than new. He needed that reminder of his past. Gingerly and reverently, he picked up the shield. It felt like coming home.

"Thought you should have it back."

Steve turned sideways to look at Tony leaning against the wall of his room. Had Tony been there when he had come in? He looked back at the shield in his hand and saw the slight scratches on one side, gained from striking something hard and with a lot of power. He guessed it was from his fight with Tony, the fight that had broken their friendship, hopefully not beyond repair. Then he remembered what Tony had said that day.

"I thought this didn't belong to me?"

Tony pushed himself away from the wall and strolled further into the room, towards the window, away from where Steve was standing at the foot of his bed. "You tried to kill me with that."

"I didn't…"

"If the reactor had still been connected to my heart, I would have died." Tony said somberly, in a resigned manner. He flicked his wrist dismissively as he looked out of the window at the orange-red sky as the sun set. "I didn't want you to have it because dad made it." Then he turned around to face Steve completely and added, "But he made it for you. He wanted you to have it. I want you to have it."

Steve looked down at the familiar weight in his hands and smiled. "Thank you," he said emotionally, trying to fit in all things left unsaid between the two of them in those two words.

Tony nodded and started to walk out of the room. On the way, he patted Steve on the back and said, "Nothing beats the original, yeah?"

"Sometimes it does," Steve said with a smile as he looked at Tony's retreating figure. Tony paused momentarily and walked out with a smile.

It was early morning when Tony found himself staring out of his window. It was far too peaceful outside, nothing indicating what would be happening today. He looked back at his rumpled bed as Pepper changed position. A part of him didn't want to go, didn't want to leave behind the one person he cared about the most in the world, but he knew what needed to be done. Thanos needed to go and Tony was going to be there to make sure that it happened. He heard Pepper get up and walk towards him and he sighed contently when she hugged him from behind. Turning around, he kissed her forehead.

"You come back safely to me. Okay?"

"Of course, Ms. Potts." He stroked the engagement ring on her finger and smiled, "We do have a wedding to plan."

Shuri sighed as she saved the message to her mother and requested Friday to send it along in case she did not make it back. She didn't even want to think about such a scenario but she had to be prepared for it. With a final glance at the room that had been hers for the past few days, she closed the door and headed towards Okoye and Nakia, both of whom had insisted on coming with her. Without a word, the three of them left for the decided upon meeting point. On the way, she met up with Natasha and handed over her latest model of blasters. Over the past few days, as a side project, she and Tony had gotten together and created a variety of weapons for the team, with occasional inputs from Rocket and Nebula.

Natasha smiled as the blasters in the form of wrist cuff clicked softly as she put them on. From the very minute that Shuri had suggested them, she knew she would fall in love with the weapon and she did, utterly and completely. She nodded at Scott and Rhodey, both of who were drinking coffee and chatting with Rocket and Brunnhilde. A solemn Barton joined them, complete with his bow and upgraded arrows and a few other weapons that were most likely provided by Rocket.

Tony checked and rechecked and then rechecked once again because it didn't hurt to be sure. His fingers hovered above the screen, never touching the controls as his eyes skimmed over the text indicating that everything was fine with his suit. He knew he was stalling for time but he couldn't get over the fact that they had fought against this guy once before and failed. It was daunting to think that they were about to go up against him once again. He wasn't scared, but at the same time, he kinda was.

Steve sighed as he looked over at Tony's hunched form. He knew that everyone was waiting for them and he had come to get Tony and Bruce, who were cooped up in the lab. The super soldier went to stand next to Tony and placed his hand on his shoulder in support. He jerked his head towards the exit and silently motioned his friend to come along.

"I'm ready," said Bruce as he stood behind Tony and Steve, a suitcase in his hand. The suitcase was actually the Hulkbuster suit (Bruce still couldn't persuade Tony to change the stupid name). Ever since the scientist had talked to Loki about the problem he was facing with Hulk, he had tried to work on some of the problems. It wasn't really effective and at first he had sought Natasha out, seeing that she was the only one who could calm the Hulk down. It was only later when Nat had said that it wasn't the Hulk she was calming, but Bruce, that he realized he was going about it all wrong.

Then he had gone to Tony. The inventor was the only one in their entire team who had accepted the Hulk long before anyone else was even comfortable thinking about the green giant. They had talked as they worked on making the gauntlet and then he had talked with everyone else too, in varying degrees. The results weren't all that encouraging. On one hand, the Hulk still refused to come out but on the other hand, Bruce actually felt it easier to communicate with the monster and he no longer had to deal with the blinding headaches that Hulk always seemed to bring to the forefront. So, that was progress. He guessed. He didn't know whether he would be able to transform when required and so Tony and Shuri had perfected the Hulkbuster and given it to him. At least he wouldn't be useless on the battlefield.

Half an hour later, everyone found themselves near the Guardian's spaceship. They were planning to use it to reach Sector F-32 and from there it was up to Loki to silently transport them to whichever sorry planet that Thanos was living on. Originally, Loki had insisted that they could trust him to transport them all the way. It would be faster than using a spaceship, but Thor had somehow managed to convince him that he needed to preserve as much of his energy as possible. They would need everything they had and then some to go up against Thanos. Loki had reluctantly agreed in the end.

"Bye, Loki!"

Loki turned around with a smile to look at the horde of children that had surrounded him. Over the past few days, he had found himself in their company quite a lot of time, to the archer's growing horror and objection. It was fun to rile up the former agent. Loki bent down to be at eye level of the kids and grinned at them.

"Come back safely." Jo said, a slight frown on her young face.

"Yeah, you still have to tell us about how you and Thor managed to get lost in the forests on your cousins' planet!" Cooper said hastily as if worried that Loki wouldn't tell them if he didn't remind the god.

"Of course," Loki said smoothly and hoped that he would actually manage to return in one piece. "It is a most scintillating story." He looked fondly as Nate tried to say the word but gave up after a couple of tries. He looked at the children and said, "Now, run along, children. Go be with your parents."

He stood after the children hugged him tightly and ran back to join their families. He looked to his left to see his own family looking at him. "What?"

"You are fond of them." Thor pointed out with a grin.

Loki rolled his eyes and grumbled, "You oaf! They are children. Everyone is fond of children."

Thor just grinned as Loki spoke. It was easy to irritate Loki. All he had to do was point out that Loki had emotions and then watch as his brother would try to deny it completely. Loki stopped talking when he noticed that Thor was gazing fondly at him. The older brother just brought his hand up to grip Loki's neck lightly but firmly, like the million and one times he had done before. Immediately, Loki smiled a bit.

"Brother," Loki said in a low voice, "I need you to promise me something."

"Only if you promise me something in return."

"Which is?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

Loki shook his head slightly and said, "I cannot promise that." Before Thor could protest, he continued, "However, I can promise to be careful."

The king pondered on that for a while before tightening his hold on Loki. "That will do, I suppose. What was it that you wished me to promise?"

"Use your head," Loki jabbed at Thor's temple and then at his heart as he said, "and not your heart." Thor frowned and the younger brother elaborated, "Think like a warrior, not a brother or a friend or a king. If you have the chance to kill Thanos, do it. Don't think if he will know who killed him."

Loki raised his voice, knowing that almost everyone had turned their attention on him and his brother the moment Thor had held him. "That goes for everyone. If you have the chance, kill Thanos. It doesn't matter who kills him or how. As long as he dies, nothing else matters."

Others grumbled incoherently and turned back to their families. Thor looked at Loki and nodded. He smiled when Loki mimicked him and placed his hand on his neck. The two brought their heads together and closed their eyes, both thinking back to the many times they had done this, usually before going into a battle – a premeditated one, not one of those that Thor randomly instigated – or while trying to cheer each other up.

As they separated, Thor said gruffly, "Let's go kill Thanos."