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A normal day.
That was all Bruce wanted and needed.
Fuck.
Ever since the whole Sakaar fiasco and Ragnarok, all he wanted was to sleep for a full week, even if it meant doping himself with drugs strong enough to dope the Hulk as well.
Unfortunately his rest had been interrupted by his sudden arrival from New Asgard to Avengers Tower. With none other than Thor and Loki, the beloved (and really deranged) little brother of the new king of Asgard.
"So, repeat the story,"
Steve said, on what seemed to be the sixth time he had asked Thor to repeat his words.
Bruce watched the scene in front of him, blinking as he drank from his coffee cup that he seemed to have refilled more than a dozen times already.
Thor was sitting on one of the armchairs in the giant living room of the floor Tony had assigned him when he had handed out the tower to the Avengers. Loki was squeezed in next to him on the same armchair, simply flipping through a book in another language and ignoring the stares of everyone else, especially Clint, who looked like he wanted to gouge his eyes out with his own fingers if he were allowed to.
Steve was sitting right in front of the pair of brothers, with Bruce at his side while Natasha and Tony were sitting at the bar, each with a drink in one hand.
"I don't know what part you don't understand, friend Steve, but I will repeat the story as many times as you see fit"
Thor answered with a smile, crossing his arms while Loki let out a slight murmur that no one could understand, apart from probably Thor, who gently hit him with his shoulder.
"So, you already know the first part, Loki wanted to invade Earth, he didn't succeed, we defeated him and all that" Thor began to explain, Loki rolling his eyes in his place next to him, with locks of black hair falling on his face.
"But I recently found out that that wasn't the whole story, but that Loki was also controlled by someone more powerful than us, who forced him to invade Earth in search of something"
He finished saying. It wasn't a long story to be honest, but Bruce could understand Steve and the others' confusion. While he had spent quite a bit of time with Loki on The Statesman during his trip back to Earth, there were still many things about the God that Bruce was unable to understand.
Loki was like a Russian doll, every time you thought you had gotten to know him well, more facets of him appeared and he was a stranger to you again.
"So what, was he somehow controlled by someone? Aren't they gods? They should be, like, the most powerful"
Clint muttered accusingly, looking quite murderous as he sat with his arms crossed, staring at Loki.
"Thanos is much more powerful than us, more powerful than the Allfather, if he wanted to kill us he could"
Loki replied, his first words since he had arrived at the Tower.
Now he really wondered what had happened when Hulk was defeated on the Statesman by that purple giant. No one had wanted to tell him and suddenly he was transported to Earth by Heimdall.
"Are you sure this isn't one of his lies to get away with it?"
Clint asked Thor, who simply frowned and rested his hand on the back of Loki's neck.
There was something that both brothers knew but refused to share. But it was something that clearly affected them both greatly.
"I saw it with my own eyes," Thor said, his voice serious, surprising everyone. Loki rolled his eyes again and looked at his brother, still with the book open on his lap. "The threat that titan represents is too much, and the power and manipulation he had and has over Loki is strong," he added seconds later.
So they were going to continue beating around the bush...
Bruce settled back into his seat, running his hand through his short hair and sighing.
"Thor means that they almost killed us."
Loki interrupted again, turning a page in his book and scanning the page with his eyes.
"Okay, okay, stop there Reindeer Games," Tony spoke, standing up. Surprisingly he didn't look that drunk. Maybe Bruce should give his friend more faith. "Who the hell is this Thanos guy who is capable of killing gods and what does he have to do with the whole green reindeer invasion?"
"I could explain if you two could just shut up for more than two minutes,"
Loki replied, earning another slap on the shoulder from Thor and what sounded like an accusatory whisper from the elder god.
"Then begin your grand play," Tony agreed, sitting back down and sipping the last of the whiskey from his glass.
"Thanos is known as The Mad Titan, he has been the cause of the disappearance of many planets and entire civilizations throughout the universe"
Loki began to speak, his voice becoming softer, even as he seemed to force himself to speak nicely for others. It seemed that something in his throat bothered him, and if Bruce looked closely, he could see some ugly bruises on his neck.
"Don't talk so much brother, you're not completely healed yet" Thor tried to insist, only for Loki to shrug his shoulders and settle further into the chair, putting his legs over Thor's and using it as a rest.
"I'm not going to die from talking, idiot" Loki replied, and that made Thor visibly tense, until Loki left his book in the space between his legs and Thor's torso, hitting his stomach gently "He has a plan, to wipe out half the universe, and for that he needs something specific from Earth" he continued speaking, as if the prospect of a titan wanting to wipe out half the universe was not a problem. It was something really scary.
"What he wanted at that moment was the tesseract, it contains one of the infinity gems, more specifically the time gem, and for that he sent me and the Chitauri to earth"
"To tell you the truth, I barely knew what the hell I was supposed to do here, but I went with the plan, even if the plan was Thanos' voice in my mind, moving my memories and making them worse to generate more hatred for Thor and the others, he had managed to get into my mind even with all my spells to prevent this through the center, the center contains the mind gem"
He continued explaining, staring at Steve as he spoke, as if he wanted to convince the captain of this. Maybe he knew that Steve was the most capable of forgiving something like that, considering Bucky and all that.
"I don't deny my part in everything, I really wanted to invade Earth, I won't deny it, but most of my actions were because of Thanos' influence on my mind"
Thor simply leaned back on the couch as he watched his brother speak.
"Still, when the green monster hit me against the ground, it somehow broke the connection I had with Thanos and I lost contact with the Chitauri army, and then I was taken to Asgard by this idiot and was imprisoned"
"More things happened from there, I almost died, I escaped again and ended up on Sakaar, with the grandmaster, En Dwi Gast"
Ah, so they had already entered that part of the story. Bruce knew that there had been something between that man and Loki, after all, the grandmaster never seemed to stop looking at him.
"There I had to do more things to survive, after all I have never been a good fighter without my magic and tricks, so I did what I could, no matter how much I wanted to, to become the right hand of the grandmaster."
And oh, that didn't give Bruce a bad feeling. He knew the Grandmaster was quite old, probably millions of years old, and in comparison, Loki was less than 1,300. Although he didn't know exactly how old the god of mischief was, the difference was enough to make him uncomfortable. He supposed there shouldn't be much difference between the two brothers, considering Thor was around 1,500.
"Things like what? Being his hitman?" Clint sneered under his breath, although even he was starting to look worried, the wrinkles under his eyes and on his eyebrows giving it away.
"No, more like his bitch,"
Loki replied, not noticing Clint's sneer.
But he definitely noticed the change in attitude in everyone in the room. Especially Thor, who looked like he was about to blow smoke out of his ears and want to murder someone.
Loki raised an eyebrow, as if he didn't understand how bad that simple sentence had been.
This conversation definitely couldn't get any worse.
"I'm going to fucking find him and kill him so slow that he'll wish he was done for and never laid a finger on you"
Thor muttered in a murderous tone, clenching his fists on Loki's legs, who finally seemed to understand the change in mood in the place.
"Easy Point Break, I understand that Reindeer Games is your little brother and all that, but he's an adult now and can decide if he wants to be someone's bitch or not"
Tony said. And there went the little faith Bruce had regained in his friend.
He patted his forehead as he sank into himself, not knowing if Tony's lack of tact was worse or Loki's.
"He isn't even old enough to vote in the Asgard Council! He is practically a kid!"
The blond exclaimed, sitting up straighter in his seat and almost knocking Loki off the chair with his sudden movements.
(And he could really make the conversation worse)
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
Clint suddenly shouted, Natasha choking on her drink as she stared at the two siblings.
"Wait a second, what do you mean Loki is a child?" Nat asked, as always being the most Conscious one on her team.
"Loki is barely 1,050 years old, he hasn't reached what is considered the age of majority in Asgard" Thor began to explain to them, while Loki finally decided to stop sharing the chair and sit on the back of it, although still half leaning against Thor.
"To tell you the truth, I've always wondered how this whole age thing works. I mean, he might be a kid in Asgard, but he definitely have to be an adult here."
Bruce tried to stay calm, but even Hulk seemed to be surprised by the plot twist they had just witnessed.
"Asgardians live around 5,000 years, humans around 80," Loki commented, picking up his book again and brushing strands of hair out of his face.
"So, considering that, we divide 5000 by 80 and it gives us 62.5."
Bruce said, already starting to do the math.
"Thor is 1500 years old, dividing that by 62.5 gives 24 years."
Tony continued with the equation, looking at the brothers as if to seek confirmation, Loki nodded from his spot and looked back at them.
"And if Loki has 1050, we divide that and we get... Oh fuck, you're 16!?"
Bruce practically shrieked, causing a new stir in the Avengers Tower common room. Clint looked like he was on the verge of having an aneurysm, hiding his face in his hands. Natasha looked shocked, even for her, Steve sat still, staring at the floor while Tony and Bruce looked at each other, both checking if there had been any errors in the math.
"For Midgard yes."
Loki nodded, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, that definitely makes the whole Grandmaster thing worse."
Bruce stood there, copying Clint's pose as he thought about everything he had just discovered in the last month.
"Probably, but I did what I had to do to survive." The younger God (and he was definitely young) replied. "Although it was more like, just resigning myself, I mean, the first night I'm pretty sure he got me high or something, then I just played along." He added seconds later.
And Thor was no longer alone in the idea of going to find the Grandmaster and torture him to death. Surprisingly, Bruce wanted to do it too, even Hulk seemed to feel the hatred towards that man.
"A damn kid mind-controlled me." Clint muttered, drawing the attention of the others. "I should have known."
"What the hell are you talking about? You had no way of knowing." Natasha interrupted him.
"Except I did, I knew it wasn't my imagination that said Loki looked too young when he wasn't in his armor, hell, he even had teenage behaviors! I mean, sudden mood swings, withdrawal, tantrums, the whole package"
He continued saying, he really looked like he was going to suffer something right there.
Loki let out an indignant sound as he looked at them, before standing up and huffing under his breath.
"I'm leaving" He indicated to his older brother, who also stood up at his words.
"Let me show you to my room, you shouldn't have talked so much when your throat is still spinning, Eir said so" Thor began to scold him, while Loki grumbled something under his breath that only Thor seemed to understand.
The living room was silent for a few minutes as the brothers left, disappearing in the general direction of the rooms. Or that is until Tony interrupted the silence that had formed.
"A kid threw me out of my own damn building," he said, walking back to the bar.
"Give me a shot of Vodka, I need to forget this," Clint muttered, still sounding too confused and upset about everything.
"Give me some too," Steve asked, surprising everyone. He looked up and shrugged. "It's not every day you find out you fought a tortured child..."
And damn he was right.
Bruce needed to drink too. And sleep.
And look for a million-year-old alien who took advantage of a 16-year-old boy.