It had been three weeks since the Chitauri attempted to conquer Earth, with Loki the God of Mischief and Magic, leading their failed invasion. With the Loki in the capable hands of his elder brother Thor, it seemed like the ideal time to clean, restore and rebuild what was lost in Manhattan during that fateful attack.

On the top floor of what was formerly known as 'Stark Tower', its illustrious sign destroyed during the initial attack, Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner were going over several blueprints designed to rebuild and enhance the efficiency of the tower itself. The building was originally designed as a beacon of hope and change for the better in a means of clean energy. Now it stands as a reminder to the people of Earth that there is a team of the mightiest heroes to ever walk the planet, ready step up and protect the innocent lives of the world whenever needed.

A sudden clap of thunder from the sky directly above the tower drew both Stark and Banner away from the plans and to the world outside. A dark swirling mass of clouds suddenly formed miles into the sky, bolts of lightning and the sound of thunder escaped the cavernous abyss of thick turbulent clouds.

"Now what?" Tony Stark shielded his eyes from the random flashes of light as he looked upward in amazement and confusion, as the two men walked out onto the charred roof top.

"Maybe an aftershock from the Tesseract?" Bruce Banner offered up the only plausible suggestion that came to mind.

"After three weeks? Seems very unlikely. Then again, I fell from the sky after throwing a nuclear missile into the other end of space only to be saved by an enormous green rage-monster. No offense by the way, you saved my life, so no jokes about it."

"No offense taken."

A sudden brilliant flash lit up the sky and from its core a humanoid figure came crashing down and onto the roof of the tower, just a few feet from where the bewildered men stood in silence. The figure looked up slowly, cautiously. His eyes met the eyes of the two men who were still standing in quiet awe as the clouds began to fade away and the newly arrived figure rose to his feet. The smoke cleared away, revealing the figure as a friend and ally, though his armor and cape were charred with the evidence of a long, perilous encounter.

"Friend Stark, Friend Banner. I have come to ask for your assistance."

"Thor? What happened?" Banner wrapped his arms around himself in a naturally defensive posture.

Tony chimed in. "Forget the 'what' for now. 'HOW' did you get here? I thought once you returned to Asgard with the Tesseract, your old man was going to lock it up and keep it away from all power-hungry and potentially genocidal wanna-be leaders."

"I will explain all in time but for now, what time I do have is of the essence and very limited." Thor threw his loosely clinging damaged cape from his shoulder. From behind he revealed a second man, horribly injured and very weak. This man was also familiar.

"Loki!" Stark wrapped his arms around himself as well. "What has he done now? And why'd you bring him here."

"This is why I need your assistance." Thor struggled to keep Loki upright, his arm carrying his brother's deadweight as the infamous God struggled to remain conscious.

"No seriously." Stark butted in emphatically. "Why did you bring him here? Remember only a few weeks ago we all worked together, and by all I mean with another three people, we wanted to catch that guy and send him away? Despite all this, you brought him back. That is very counterproductive work there Fabio."

Thor looked at Stark with absolute confusion. "'Fabio'? What is 'Fabio'?"

Banner covered his mouth with his hand to hide his amused smirk.

"Never mind. It's not important." Stark continued. "What do you need and why is your 'evil' half with you?"

"The Allfather is responsible for the state in which you see my brother at this moment."

"The 'Allfather'? Are you referring to Odin?" Banner had taken the liberty to brush up on his Norse mythology. "Isn't Odin also your FATHER, father?"

"Indeed he is. My father is the wisest man I will ever know, yet I have only recently come to understand how unforgiving his wrath can be."

He focused his eyes back to Loki whose pale, mangled body remained helpless and pathetic next to Thor.

"His actions were horrid and his sins may very well be beyond forgiveness and I understand that his very presence in Midgard is unwelcome and insulting. But he is still my brother, and I could not stand idle as his life was slowly being destroyed at the hands of our father. I have come to you to ask for a place of sanctuary for my unfortunate brother. I have limited time and options, I believe that you are the most worthy and trustworthy Midgardians that I will ever know. Can I rely on you for assistance?"

Stark and Banner simultaneously exchanged skeptical looks.

"It's your call doc."

"My call? Why me?"

"Well, doctor Banner I trust your judgment and respect your opinions." Stark smiled sheepishly.

"I'm not that kind of doctor though, Tony."

"But you have traveled the world, helped people in need of medical attention and treated several of those people in a medicinal sense. But yeah, you're right. You're not that kind of a doctor."

"That's not the entire point. Even if I were completely qualified to treat him, which I'm not, I would only be qualified to treat him as a human, which he is not."

"True. But since he's wanted dead on Asgard and dead here, on Midgard, there's really no way you can mess up."

Once again, Tony Stark had won an argument. Banner didn't respond but only looked at Loki's dying body.

"Please Friend Banner, I implore you to reconsider and assist my Brother."

He sighed heavily in defeat. "All right, all right. I'll do what I can but we can NOT let him escape the tower."

"'We'?" Stark looked at Banner in a sarcastic tone.

"You already gave your consent when you argued in favor of me treating him."

"Well, it wasn't so much consent as it was my infallible desire to win a debate."

"Too late."

"Fine. We'll take him down the infirmary, we needed to test out all the equipment to make sure it was safe to use on people anyway."

"Thank you friends."

Bruce Banner escorted Thor to the recently built infirmary while Tony Stark worked to program a security feature to monitor all the activity that would take place in the infirmary. Once Loki was placed on the long medical examination table, Thor nodded respectfully to Banner and again to Stark as he exited the room back to the roof. In a similar manner to which he arrived, Thor disappeared into the swirling black clouds above the tower and once more, the clouds disappeared shortly after his departure.

"Well doc, what's the prognosis?" Stark looked on curiously from the opened door.

"I'm not really sure. He looks human and he sounds human, but there's just no way to guarantee that treating him like a human is the proper course of action."

"Maybe we should just let nature take its course."

Banner looked at Stark with annoyance.

"Or we find an adequate course of treatment for the little maniac; again, it's your call."

"Yeah, thanks. Speaking of which, don't you think you should call Pepper and fill her in our guest?"

Stark sucked in a quick breath through his teeth in a nervous fashion. "Pepper… Right."

"Oh, I can't wait to hear your explanation for this one!"

"It'll be fine. A blonde with long hair and 'daddy issues' offered us the chance to take in an injured outcast with even bigger 'daddy-issues'. I've always wanted a pet."

Banner shook his head while stifling a laugh as Stark left the room to make contact with Pepper who was still in Malibu. He was then left alone with the fallen God of Mischief.

…to be continued….