"...Mobius, since when were you this bad at keeping secrets?"

Loki's cool voice drifted from behind. Mobius turned, and came face to face with Loki's expression of absolute helplessness.

Before arriving, Loki had specifically told Mobius and Sylvie not to breathe a word about any of it. No particular reason, Loki simply didn't want to deal with that group's weird looks.

Just thinking about it was nauseating.

Case in point: at some point, everyone from Asgard had quietly gathered around, though the Avengers, utterly engrossed in the story, hadn't noticed a thing.

Just as Loki was frantically trying to find an opening to cut off Mobius's cheerful rambling, Frigga smiled over. That faint, slightly pleading look stopped every word in Loki's throat.

...Fine. Hopefully Mobius wouldn't let too much slip.

"..."

Then, having listened to the entire account, Loki closed his eyes in despair.

Mobius hadn't said too much, strictly speaking. Mobius had simply cut straight to the ending.

"Loki..." Frigga reached up and gently stroked Loki's cheek, the corners of her eyes reddening, looking as if she might burst into tears any second.

Loki panicked.

"Mother, don't listen to Mobius's nonsense. I'm a one-of-a-kind existence now — you should be proud of me."

Frigga fought back the urge to cry. She nodded and pulled this son from another universe into her arms.

Every form of time magic was without exception unfathomably deep. For an ordinary person, mastering even a single spell was as difficult as climbing to the heavens, let alone commanding the entirety of all timelines. If anyone said Loki had become that supreme existence without doing anything at all, Frigga would never believe it for a moment.

She hardly dared imagine what her son had gone through to end up like this.

"Yes. I should be proud of you, my child..."

The moment Loki heard the tremor in Frigga's voice, Loki knew she hadn't been fooled at all. But knowing full well that more explanation only meant more mistakes, Loki simply held her in silence, taking in the embrace that had cost so much to earn.

Then, without warning, Loki's form flickered like television static. A wave of sharp gasps went through the room.

"Don't worry — I just need to pop back for a moment. I'll be right bac—" One sentence of comfort to Frigga, and then Loki was gone.

Frigga remained frozen, arms still open, the son who had been inside them nowhere to be found.

A long silence.

"Now." Frigga raised a hand and pressed it to the corner of her eye, smoothing away the dampness there. When she spoke again, her voice was perfectly composed. "Can we talk? Mobius, Sylvie?"

...

Inside the compound.

The living room was packed wall to wall with people, the once-spacious room suddenly feeling cramped.

"How long before he returns?" Frigga asked.

Everyone knew who she meant. Every head turned toward the two visitors from the other universe.

"...An hour." Ever since being caught by Loki and the others, Mobius had been wearing that same hollow, dead-eyed look of someone who had made peace with the void.

Clint sympathetically handed Mobius an apple pie.

Watching Sylvie shift restlessly in her seat not far away, Yang Luoluo guessed Sylvie was probably worried Frigga would be furious once Sylvie heard everything, after all, Sylvie had once been a notorious time variant at the Time Variance Authority, the kind with quite a lot of blood on those hands.

Yang Luoluo thought about it for a moment, then went to the fridge, grabbed a pudding, and pressed it into Sylvie's hand.

They were both Lokis, right? Sylvie would probably like this too.

Sylvie glanced at her in surprise, then looked over at Loki, whose face had gone half-astonished, half-displeased. Sylvie's mood lifted immediately. With a grinning word of thanks, Sylvie didn't miss the chance to hold the pudding up and flaunt it directly at Loki.

Loki shot Yang Luoluo an irritated glare. What Loki got back was an expression of pure, unimpeachable innocence.

Frigga paid no attention to the little drama playing out among the youngsters. After hearing Mobius's answer, she gave a small nod.

"That should be enough time."

"Now. Tell me what you all went through."

"Actually, I think..." Mobius mounted one last desperate stand. "We should probably consider Loki's opinion on this. Maybe it's better to wait until Loki gets back and let Loki decide what to share."

Sylvie, eating the pudding, nodded in agreement.

Honestly, if Sylvie had been the one to do all of that, Sylvie wouldn't want their mother to know either. It would do nothing except cause Frigga pain.

Frigga let out a quiet sigh. "You should understand, if I ask Loki directly, it won't take long before the answer comes out anyway. All we're doing now is moving the timeline forward a little."

The moment Mobius saw both Loki and Sylvie go rigid at exactly the same time, Mobius knew Frigga was telling the truth.

Mobius stopped fighting it. Just sighed.

"Fine... I can only hope Loki won't hold it against me when the time comes."

"It started when you traveled to New York in 2012. Because of your interference, the Loki of that universe wasn't taken back to Asgard along the predetermined path..."

...

So. By the time Loki had rested enough to send a duplicate back, what greeted the arrival was Frigga and Thor with red-rimmed eyes, and expressions across every Avenger's face that were hard to read.

"..." Loki went silent.

"You are finished, Mobius! I am never approving your leave requests again!" The shout came out furious.

Mobius, however, had long since made peace with reality somewhere in the middle of the lengthy retelling. Even as Loki shouted, Mobius just sat there placidly working through the apple pie, and offered only a calm nod.

"Oh."

Loki got even angrier.

Before any more fury could build, Frigga had already wrapped both arms around Loki, and Thor piled on without an ounce of hesitation.

"Brother, you are a hero!"

"My good child, you are our pride. If Odin were still here, I believe he would be proud of you too."

The first half made the corner of Loki's mouth curl up without permission. The second half wiped it flat instantly.

Odin. Yeah. Pass.

"What, jealous?"

Yang Luoluo glanced toward Loki, who stood beside her staring unblinkingly at the warm scene of Frigga and Thor wrapping both Loki and Sylvie in their arms. The teasing came out before she thought about it.

Loki stiffened, almost imperceptibly, and fired back, "Don't be ridiculous, why would I be jealous!"

But the low pressure rolling off him was unmistakable.

"All right, stop sulking." She pulled Loki into a hug. When she tried to step back, he didn't let her go. Warm breath spilled against the side of her neck, and then his voice came, muffled and disgruntled.

"That is my mother. And my brother."

Ever since Frigga had received his message and come to Earth, she'd looked in on him once, and then her attention had been entirely on Loki and Sylvie. Even that idiot Thor was completely wrapped up in his new brother and new sister.

Loki hadn't shown much on the surface. But inside, he was practically curdling with envy.

Yang Luoluo ran a hand lightly through his hair, softer than she'd expected, by a fair margin, and said, patiently:

"Didn't you just hear? The timeline they originally came from was pruned by the TVA. Not even that Loki could restore it."

Right now, Loki and Sylvie were about as homeless as it got.

Which was precisely why Frigga's heart ached for those two so deeply. She had already decided, without hesitation, to take all of the children back to Asgard for a few days, one Thor and three Lokis, the whole lot of them.

"...Are you coming?" Loki asked, after a moment.

Yang Luoluo blinked, catching up. "To Asgard?"

Still tucked against her neck, Loki nodded. The movement sent a strand of hair dragging across her skin, and she felt a smile tug at her lips before she could stop it.

"I won't go. Things are hectic right now, I need to stay on Earth and help." She felt the pressure settle over him again and quickly rubbed his back. "Just make sure you bring me back something good from Asgard. Food, trinkets, whatever."

"All right."

Thor was already hollering Loki's name from across the room. Loki only had time to lean down and press a quick kiss to her lips before heading over.

"Wait for me to come back."

➤ Next: The Suddenly Appearing Monster

Chapter 132 - The Suddenly Appearing Monster

Watching the Bifrost's dazzling light slowly fade, Yang Luoluo turned around with a faint hollow feeling in her chest.

Every single Avenger was staring at her with deeply amused expressions.

"..." A bad feeling welled up instantly. She took one instinctive step back.

Sure enough, right in front of her, someone started making trouble.

Pietro cleared their throat, straightened their collar with great ceremony, and then addressed Wanda beside them with complete and utter seriousness. "Wait for me, Wanda."

Wanda was already on the verge of losing it entirely, but held on just long enough to play along.

"...Okay, hahahahaha!" The words came out warped by the strained expression of someone desperately trying not to laugh, which only made the whole thing funnier.

Yang Luoluo's face went scarlet in an instant, a full-body flush that raced from her forehead all the way down to her neck. She heard muffled laughter breaking out on all sides. She took a deep breath, then launched herself at the Maximoff twins with fingers curled like claws.

"Wanda! Pietro! You two are DEAD!"

One person chasing, two people running for their lives. The rest of the Avengers laughed without a shred of restraint.

...

Earth had no shortage of problems right now. The Snap from Endgame had brought back every life that had vanished, half the universe, returned in an instant, and the fragile social order that had barely stabilized promptly collapsed in a roar.

Dazed, disoriented citizens turned up in places no one expected. And with the chaos came opportunity: robberies, thefts, murders, arsons. Every kind of wrongdoing imaginable, all at once.

Police departments, hospitals, fire stations, every emergency organization on the planet was running on fumes. Within days, prisons were bursting at the seams, and the crimes just kept coming.

The Avengers hadn't stopped moving. Every day was either a mission or the road to one.

The funny thing was, the Avengers' reputation seemed to be doing half the work for them. Apparently, saving the entire universe from the Mad Titan had made quite an impression, because more often than not, all it took was for an Avenger to show up and stand there, and the criminals would drop their weapons and surrender on the spot, shaking the whole time.

It saved a lot of effort for the enemies who actually needed dealing with.

"If you ask me, why can't that damn Hydra ever sit still? They have to stick their fingers into absolutely everything!"

Clint loosed a single arrow and blew a dense cluster of enemies sky-high, voice raw with irritation.

The robbery weapons had been wholesaled from Hydra. The murder plans had been drawn up by Hydra. Hidden inside the arson mobs were Hydra operatives.

Nearly every headache the Avengers had dealt with lately had Hydra's fingerprints on it.

"Looks like wiping out Hydra's base needs to go on the agenda. Coming out every few days just to make everyone's life miserable, who has the patience for that!"

Peter's voice crackled through the comms, buzzing with energy. Under the words, faintly audible: attack sounds, grunts of effort, enemies crying out. Just the audio was enough to picture how intense things were on Peter's end.

"I think Peter's onto something. Can you count me in?"

An eager female voice hit the comms, and a beat later, Yang Luoluo cut in with a confident smile in her voice.

"No, Kate. You're still a reservist. Leave Hydra to the official members."

Kate had just reeled in her bow on the rooftop. The excitement drained from her face. Kate let out a defeated sigh.

A few weeks ago, Clint had pulled Kate's mother, Eleanor Bishop, aside for a quiet conversation. Whatever was said, it worked, after that, Eleanor started turning a blind eye to Kate slipping out to play vigilante whenever the mood struck.

Hawkeye's most devoted fan had exactly one reaction to this: Truly worthy of my idol. Managed to bring around someone as impossible as Kate's mom.

Between the ongoing chaos and the Avengers being stretched thin, Clint had gone straight to the Bishop household, dragged Kate out, and handed Kate a reservist badge.

That was how the squad ended up with four. Clint leading, Peter and Yang Luoluo rounding it out, now with Kate added to the mix. Days: missions together. Nights: Clint went to rest, and the younger ones took over patrol.

Yang Luoluo, fresh off rejecting Kate, felt the corners of her mouth curl up. This was exactly the appeal of being an official member, pulling rank on the reservist was genuinely satisfying. No wonder Tony had enjoyed giving Peter and her such a hard time.

Then Clint's voice came through the comms, clearly fighting back laughter.

"Terribly sorry, but I think dismantling Hydra should be a mission for us veteran Avengers. So, you newer additions can't come along either."

You newer additions can't come along either.

Newer additions can't come along.

Can't come along...

"Ha!" Kate crowed.

Peter, caught in the crossfire, was not pleased. "Hey! My time as an official member might be short, but I've been putting in work since before most people knew the Avengers existed! I've known Mr. Stark since 2016, that has to count for something as a veteran!"

"Don't care." Clint shut it down without mercy. "If you feel that strongly, go convince Iron Man."

One sentence, and Peter deflated completely.

Tony probably still had the image burned into the back of their mind, Peter dissolving to ash in Tony's arms. And then, on top of that, Peter had gone behind everyone's back and used Loki to sneak off to the new compound.

When the dust settled after the battle, Tony had nearly collected Peter's suit then and there, accounts very much not forgiven. It was Steve, stepping in again and again to smooth things over, who saved it, Peter kept the suit, though not without some tearful pleading in the process.

Not that Tony had actually let it go. If Peter went and asked Tony about joining a Hydra raid, Tony would lock Peter in a training room without blinking and leave Peter there until the mission was already over.

"Ugh." Peter sighed. A Stark-brand father figure was genuinely a lot to handle.

Then Kate's voice came through, a little tense.

"Hey — Clint, everyone. We've got something at six o'clock."

All three turned at once. Peter was still grumbling mid-turn.

"What is it, another Hydra arson crew — holy shit!"

They pulled together fast. Kate was on the roof; Kate grabbed the rope at the waist and dropped down.

Yang Luoluo stared, eyes wide.

A massive creature was walking toward them from a distance, steady, unhurried. Roughly humanoid in shape, its entire body appeared to be made of grayish-brown dust, dirt raining off it in loose showers with every step.

"Don't tell me this is also some kind of Hydra science experiment?"

Kate's voice shook. With sharp eyes, Kate could make out the monster's face clearly enough to catch the expression on it, a smile, if you could call it that. Vicious didn't cover it.

BOOM!

The monster's hand came down. Half the walls of the surrounding buildings crumbled instantly. Dust and debris erupted into the air and swallowed the sky, blotting out most of the sunlight in one go.

Watching it, Clint felt something heavy settle in the chest. Almost nobody on their team was magic-capable. Yang Luoluo barely counted, but her role was support; she didn't have the firepower to go at this thing directly either.

"We have to get people out," Clint said, voice low and flat.

No matter what this thing was or how bad the odds looked, they were the Avengers. Getting people out was the job.

The three nodded. All four of them shot toward the monster like arrows off a string, cutting straight through the crowd of civilians running full-tilt the other way.

Up close, the scale of it was a different thing entirely.

The monster was easily ten or more stories tall. Its roar hit like a physical thing. One breath through the nose and the burning started, Yang Luoluo half-expected to be buried in the choking wall of dust the next second, suffocation crawling up the back of her throat.

"Th-this, how exactly are we supposed to deal with that?" Peter's voice came out in pieces.

Every time Peter thought he'd seen enough to handle whatever came next, something would show up and prove him wrong. First the Vulture. Then Thanos. Now this.

Peter was trembling.

Just a friendly neighborhood kid from Queens. A perfectly ordinary one. Why did the universe keep doing this to Peter specifically?

"Wait — look. Is that someone flying over there?"

Yang Luoluo's voice had the quality of someone questioning whether reality was still functioning. Following her finger, a figure in a deep purple-red cape was weaving back and forth around the monster, both hands firing steady bursts of green light.

The figure seemed to notice them looking. It glanced over, let the hands drop, and began drifting slowly in their direction.

➤ Next: Mysterio — The Conversation