Author's Notes: Thank you all so, so much for reading and for commenting. It means a lot to me that you've all stopped by to tell me what you think.

I promised you an ending. I know it's been a long time in coming, and I appreciate your patience. I hope you enjoy it.

Intervention- Epilogue

It was three months.

Three months – and Steve would have taken a lot longer, if Tony hadn't come in one day, fresh from a battle in the air above Central Park, and said, "Anyone else notice the whole campaign-against-the-evil-that-menaces-New-York gig's been pretty easy, lately?"

He flopped back into his chair as he said it, a black leather piece three sizes too large, with a sleek back and poor design taste. "Not that I'm complaining," he clarified, staring over its streamlined, modern-sensibility arm to watch Thor's face. "Just thought I'd mention it."

And he was right, when Steve thought about it.

Lately, there seemed to be helpful anonymous tips when a villain had evaded them for too long. They came in phone calls and letters – they came from little boys and old women, from middle-aged men and teenage girls. They came from a public that had not always been ready to cooperate, not even with their own safety on the line. And for the first time ever, they came readily.

But there was more than that.

There were moments like when that old warehouse by the harbor, so damaged it was standing with nothing more than a hope and a prayer, held together just long enough for them to take out two Doombots inside. They had come out unscathed, and Steve had counted them lucky.

There was the fire that had broken out on 5th Street, when the Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs had smashed against the foundation, leaving no less than seventeen civilians trapped in the roaring fire. When they had arrived, every man, woman and child had already escaped via the stairwell. It stood on the side of the building struck with the bombs, but it had remained utterly untouched by the surrounding destruction, safe and clear. And Steve had counted them lucky.

There was the psychopath in a dress suit that had attended Tony's most recent publicity stunt – a well-dressed older gentleman, with a trim white beard, small wire rim glasses, and a gun hidden in a back holster. He'd drawn it just after Tony had toasted the anniversary of Stark enterprises, had aimed and fired a shot at an Iron Man without the iron around to keep him safe. But the bullet had ricocheted, had struck the wall harmlessly, and the police had cuffed the man and dragged him away. He went howling and raving, preaching to any who would listen about the moral depravity of the upper class.

No one could decide what exactly the bullet had ricocheted off of – but the police had shrugged their shoulders, washed their hands of it, and called it a job well done. They'd counted Tony Stark lucky.

There was the day when the photos had appeared on Steve's bed: black and white at first, then grainy color, then finally sharp digital things. They catalogued the life of a woman named Peggy Carter, agent and director of Shield – showed all she'd been capable of and all she'd achieved. And if Steve had cried a little bit, looking at them in the privacy of his room, they had also filled a hole that he had not known was empty. They'd given him a sense of closure he hadn't known he was missing.

Leafing through them, he'd thought they were something Tony had dug up, some keepsake of his father's discovered while cleaning out a box of junk in one of the mansions he called home. But Steve had never asked, and Tony had never brought it up.

Now, Steve wondered whether it had been him, after all.

He wondered, too, whether Bruce or Thor would have stories of their own to tell, little coincidences written off as luck.

But he only said, "No sense in looking a gift horse in the mouth. A little easier still means we've got plenty of things left to worry about."

He hadn't gotten good, in the last few months, at not saying what he wanted to say. It wasn't easy, sneaking around a secret that couldn't be spoken of. He felt as though he was playing a part in a movie, and that everyone had learned their lines better than he had.

And so Steve wondered, and recalled small details that he'd overlooked, and he did not ask.

Doctor Strange arrived on the eleventh of the month. He came in silks and velvets of black and vivid crimson. His shoes were polished black leather, his belt buckle an intricate design, swoops and whirls that looked almost like writing. On his neck he wore an amulet on a long silver chain, the gem polished smooth, the color of fresh blood. A matching stone, set in silver, adorned the ring on each of the man's hands.

He brought with him incense and crystals, candles and charcoal. From a carpet bag of black velvet, he produced the supplies, laying each item out reverently upon a small table of metal.

Then he ushered everyone from the bottommost story of Tony Stark's tower, down in the basement where the workshop was arranged. He closed the windows off to bar all outside light and settled down in the darkness to kindle his fires and hold his rituals.

When he was finished, he walked up the flights of stairs to the top of the building, ignoring the offer of an elevator. Here, too, he sealed the windows, blotting out the day with thick, dark fabric – barred the Avengers, one and all, from the entire floor – and performed his spell once more.

When he was finished, he shook Steve Rogers' hand. He advised them that the shield would hold, so long as they never destroyed both the ceiling and the basement floor at once.

Then he packed up his belongings into his velvet bag, wished them luck in their affairs, and saw himself out.

The mortal who knew the ways of magic had been gone not yet two days when Thor ventured forth into the kitchen of a morning, seeking the pot from which coffee might be made.

Little was necessary, to encourage this machine to create the brew he favored. Most of the effort hinged upon the selection of a small cup, labeled with the variety of the beverage it contained. While most technology of Midgard evaded him still, this mechanical creation, at least, he had mastered.

He had just nestled the cup into the space beneath the lid, was turning to the cupboard in which the man of iron displayed his dishware, when motion and a flash of color caught the corner of his eye.

Green, it was, green and black, and Thor turned so quickly that one of the thick mugs from the shelf crashed to the floor and shattered, unnoticed.

And there, settled in one of the high-backed kitchen chairs, lounging with grace and a knowing smile, was his brother.

His limbs had filled out, since last Thor had seen him – and the hollows of his cheeks, as well. Where before, there had been the pink of newly healed skin, now all was Loki's accustomed pale, smooth and even, no sign of damage yet lingering.

He had taken care in his dress: a slim suit of the sort that men of business favored upon Midgard, deepest black, with a shirt of rich emerald and green stones upon each wrist, at the cuffs. A narrow cloth was tied about his neck, as was the human fashion, and he had brushed back his hair and slicked it, as had been his habit since days long gone.

Thor stared at him, at a ghost made flesh, at this man who had not been whole, been healthy, for longer than he cared to remember. For an instant, his wits left him without words, but he felt the grin begin upon his lips, creeping wide and then wider. "Brother," he said, and he took a step forward.

Before Loki could think to protest, Thor was laughing, was enclosing his brother's narrow form in a tight embrace. "You look well," he said, and forced himself not to hold as tightly as he was able, lest he crush the man against him. "It is good to see you well, brother."

"It is good to be well," Loki told him, and allowed himself to be held a moment more before he leaned away, lifted both eyebrows, and remarked, "Your drink spills upon the counter."

"I care not for drinks," Thor told him, though he turned to see that it was so. The coffee had dripped from its maker without a cup beneath, had formed a steaming puddle that served a compliment to the shattered mug upon the floor. "I would hear where you have been."

When Loki waved a hand, careless and dismissive, the gesture held all of the easy grace that Thor recalled from a childhood spent together – and so too from those days beyond, when his brother had become a bitter creature, half-mad with jealousy. He was not certain which the man before him was like to be, friend or foe, but Thor knew that it gladdened his heart to see his brother sound of body.

"About Midgard," said Loki, "making what arrangements need be made, that I might remain." His brother smiled, and there too was an expression Thor knew of old, cunning and mocking both together, with something like affection underneath. His brother had ever been a master of lies – but this smile, Thor hoped, was true. "There's more to tell, but the tale is long."

"I've time enough and more," Thor said at once.

His brother's gaze lingered – thoughtful, as though Loki sought the next move in a particularly challenging game. "And I," he said at last. He nodded to the place where the coffee was dripping slowly to the floor, leaving brown runnels down the doors of the cupboards. "But see to your drink, brother," he said. "I'll not vanish if you turn your eyes away."

And so Thor knelt upon the floor of tile. He picked up fragments of blue ceramic, and he mopped the spilled liquid with a towel.

When he finished, he made not one drink but two. Then he set a steaming cup of coffee before his brother, who had not vanished.