A/N: And we're back. If you haven't read "To Burn the Horizon," this will not make a lot of sense. If you have, strap in. Enjoy.

Prologue: "No beginning. No end. Return to whiteness."

In the beginning, as is often the case, there was peace.

Peace, however, is a not a natural state for this particular universe. Any why should it be? The universe is a volatile thing, a thing of ceaseless change, a thing stretching out with mighty fingers to create more and more of itself all the time.

Its inhabitants, being made of the same universe-stuff, are filled with the same impulses: to move, to change, to grow, to take, to conquer.

That is how the relative peace on a little blue planet was shattered.

That was the beginning.

But this not the end. No, that will still come – as it always does – in a cloud of ash and earth and that deep, resounding silence.

No, this is the middle.

This is between.

This is when choices begin to carry weight, when mistakes begin to compound, when paths begin to line up, when things are given a moment to breathe before building to that one, last breathless end.

xXx

This is between:

Somewhere...anywhere...nowhere...

Somewhere neither light or dark. Somewhere only gray.

"Am I alive?"

A green-gold-dark sound of a voice, his own, he thinks, echoes through the gray.

"Am I dead?"

("We're neither.")

Black-red voice above-around, booming and whispering, outside and inside, everywhere and nowhere, black and red on gray.

("You're drifting again.")

"What?"

Floating formless in the gray. Not a bad way to go, all things considered. Caught between. Maybe alive, maybe dead, maybe neither, maybe it doesn't matter. Comfortable here: painless and weightless and thoughtless.

"Dead. Alive. Dead? Alive?"

("We are neither. Trust me, Loki. I know a thing or two about the dead. For starters, if we were dead – really dead – we would not be here.")

A single word like a hook, tugging him away from the comfort-haze.

"No."

("Loki.")

Loki. That word. A hook with familiar barbs.

"I am Loki."

("Yes, I believe we established that.")

Red-black boom-whisper from close by. Vapor presence. Someone else.

"If I am Loki, who are you?"

("You don't remember me. That explains a great deal. We've met before, you know. Or...? Ah. No, no, we have not. Not in this when, not yet. I am Mephisto.")

Red skin bleached near-pink by brilliant tendril of white. A bearded face twisted into an eternal agony-howl. A slow-creep of memory, like water seeping through cracks in rock.

"Mephisto."

("Yes.")

"I know of you. You rule Hell, do you not?"

("My Hell, yes.")

"Where are we?"

("I was hoping you might have some idea. Last I recall, I tried to take you through the portal. Next I knew, here I was.")

Stirring of anger: an iron poker jabbing at old coals, seeking to reignite. Sparks in the gray as memory flares alight.

Raising the Wizard's Eye to the tear...

Something slamming into him, grabbing hold of him...

Being torn apart, burned alive, consumed by pure white fire...

"It was a tear, you utter fool. You tore holes in the walls between dimensions. You very nearly caused the end of existence!"

("I planned to stop it before it got to that point. Contrary to what you might think, I am well aware of the consequences of meddling with dimensional magics.")

"Then why did you do it?"

("To get your attention. But that is neither here nor there. Where are we?")

"I would not have asked you that had I known the answer."

No eyes to see, no hands to feel, no body to move, no mouth with which to speak, nor ears with which to hear. Formless and shapeless.

How, then, to explain the sense of thereness?

To explain the sense of the other's thereness?

Illusion? Hallucination?

"Is this real?"

("Yes, it's real. You and I, we are trapped here. Wherever here is.")

"And you are certain this is not death."

("Yes.") A vicious snarl, frustrated black. ("I rule Hell, my soul is bound to Hell, and if I were dead, I would be there now. This is not Hell. This is worse.")

Gray. Endless, limitless gray.

Between light and dark. Between alive and dead. Between everything and nothing. Between here and there. Between beginning and ending.

This is between.

"This is Limbo."

("And finally we've caught up. Yes, Loki. Yes, this is Limbo. Welcome to it.")

Welcome to it.

That's not much of a comfort, really, not in this unholy stillness.

Not at all.

xXx

This is between:

Odin, All-Father, looks down on his wife, a frail, fragile figure caught somewhere between waking and nightmares.

"Any change, All-Father?" a quiet voice asks.

Odin does not look around. "No," he says simply. "I am afraid she will soon be lost to us."

xXx

This is between:

Tony Stark, Iron Man, says, "We need to find Bruce and Tasha."

"We need to go help out first," Captain America says. They are still standing on a rooftop over which a dimensional tear had been closed not five minutes ago. Cap isn't looking up, though; he's looking down at explosions still happening below. "Looks like they're getting overrun." He glances at Tony, though, that same hope, that same conflict in his eyes. "Unless you have some idea where they are...? Because if you do, we'll go find them."

"I – no," Tony admits. "But the guys that took them, if they were Osborn's men..."

"Do you think they'd be somewhere in the city?"

Tony looks around, shakes his head. "Probably not. If they had a helicopter, they could have gotten out by now. Still..."

Cap picks up his shield. "Which means they could be anywhere by now."

"Yeah," Tony says. Or dead. "Still..."

"I know, but if you don't know, then we need to take care of what we can right now."

Thor, a forbidding presence at Cap's shoulder, folds his arms over his massive chest. "He is right, Man of Iron. Would you let thousands die while we selfishly look for but two? Our brother and sister, true, but sometimes we must put aside our own desires for the good of many."

Our own desires.

Tony does not doubt even for a moment what that means.

But in the thinned press of Thor's lips and the vague frown and the flickering of tired eyes, there the same conflict.

Steve says, "Let's just finish this here. Go help them. Do this one thing. And then we'll go look for them."

Tony wants to argue, he really does, but in the end, hearing another explosion somewhere below, hearing some tiny screams from down there, he can't.

He nods and says, "Okay."

xXx

Trouble is, the alien forces had a six hour window between the time the tear opened and the time it closed. Which means they had time to scatter across the planet. Which means a lot of them were well clear of the tear when it started pulling things back through.

Which means cities all over the world get bombed and towns outside of New York get overrun by hoards of alien soldiers. (They don't stop just because Thanos is no longer calling the shots.)

Which meant a "do this one thing" sprint turns into a five-day mop-up marathon not only for the Avengers but for military forces all over the world.

They win, eventually, and a lot of that is down to the presences of Thor's warriors, whose tireless determination helps boost spirits everywhere, and the three Avengers, who keep fighting through fatigue and mounting injuries and damaged armor – and Tony constantly having to ask Thor for a recharge, and Thor always looking a little too amused when he sends a bolt of lightning Tony's way – and the gnawing fear for their missing friends.

(That fear is just a little muted after Tony witnesses an alien soldier coldly shoot a small girl, and a mother with her infant son. Just a little.)

When "this one thing" is done, Thor sends his warriors – along with a bound Thanos – back to Asgard.

Afterward, three filthy, exhausted, dinged and dented Avengers stand alone and silent in a dusk-lit field somewhere in Pennsylvania.

In a bit, they will return to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s temporary headquarters to sleep and eat and figure out their next move.

(To figure out if Bruce and Tasha are even still alive, Tony thinks but doesn't say. Five days makes a difference. But he tells himself it was a choice between those two and the thousands they saved. Doesn't make it any easier to swallow. But.)

But for now, the three damaged heroes stand in a hazy field somewhere between the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, catching their breath.

xXx

This is between:

While heroes are collecting their breath, others are waiting to make their moves.

In a nondescript warehouse somewhere in California, Norman Osborn stands in a makeshift observation room, studying a silently screaming green monster on a computer monitor. The monster is locked in a clear cage. Around the top of the cage are small black discs filled with the radioactive material that is keeping the monster from reverting back.

It's a frightening sight.

"Well?" Osborn rasps at the doctor beside him.

"It's early so far, sir," the doctor, a calm little man with thick glasses, replies, "but I believe I've managed to extract a clear enough sample of the radiation in his blood that I can isolate the trigger."

"Excellent," Osborn says. A tall man in a dark suit, he bends forward again to study the monitor again. "How long until you know for sure?"

"Tomorrow at the latest. If I'm right, and assuming you're able to procure the materials I need, I can begin testing by the end of the week. Am-? You sill want me to use the woman as the test subject, yes?"

"Yes, I do," Osborn says. He straightens, adjusts his tie, and steps away from the desk. "If you'll excuse me, I must be going. Keep me informed."

"Yes, sir."

Osborn leaves the office, but pauses a short way down the hall.

He leans back against a wall and rubs tired eyes.

"Are you sure this is the right way to do this?" he says, squeezing his eyes shut.

"I have not been wrong so far," the Goblin tells him. "Look around you: the world is in chaos, there is a power void right now, and if you succeed with this experiment, you will be in the perfect position to step into it. You wanted the power. Now you can step in and grab it."

"But Stark is still alive."

"Yes, and he will be coming for you. I told you not to tell him about the stolen reactor plans."

"I know. I know, I shouldn't have, but..."

"You had to rub it in his face – that you knew more about what was happening in his company than he did."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"He's a risk to you. He will be coming for you. They all will. That is why you must-"

A voice slides over the Goblin's. "Mr. Osborn? Is everything all right?"

Osborn opens his eyes, and as he does he realizes he's been standing with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stop a nosebleed. He lowers his hand and glances around.

A brown-haired young man in a gray shirt and black slacks stands nearby, watching in what appears to be concern. He's of the new assistants at the facility, who is also filling in as one for Osborn himself until things settle down.

"Yes, yes," Osborn says pushing away from the wall. "I was just, ah, gathering my thoughts. Is the car ready?"

"Yes, sir," the young man replies. "It's just outside."

"Good, thank you." Osborn starts to turn, but pauses. Something familiar about the boy. "It was Dallas, right?"

The young man nods. "Yes, sir. Like the city."

"And you-? You're Stark's ex-assistant, are you not? The one who showed us his security system?"

"Yes, sir," the young man says. "That was me."

"Good work." Osborn nods and starts off down the hall. "Keep your phone on at all times, Dallas. I will have further need of you."

"I will do that, Mr. Osborn."

As he steps out of the facility, Norman Osborn hears the Goblin whisper deep in the back of his mind, "Later, you and I will talk. I have a plan."

xXx

I am becoming
In the realm of unknown
Beyond unending
Time
Space
And form
-Lunatic Soul, "Otherwhere"

A/N: Special thanks to DragonFlight20 for sending me the backup copy of this! You are a lifesaver! Thanks for reading.