The world had survived another invasion and immediately begun arguing over who deserved the credit.
Lucius considered the matter settled. Thor had supplied the announcement, the crowd had supplied the acclaim, and every camera in Greenwich had obtained a clear view of the Champion of Asgard accepting both. Anything further risked turning recognition into an unpaid conversation.
The real Stone remained hidden within him. Above his palm, a dark crimson mass turned inside a telekinetic cage, convincing enough to satisfy every phone and camera aimed at it. The crowd had watched him pull something from Malekith before the Dark Elf became dust. Now they could watch the Champion of Asgard contain the Aether after saving both realms from it.
The compressed remains of Malekith, his surface force, and their wreckage rested in Inventory. Around the intersection, police and SHIELD agents tried to establish control over civilians who had just watched gravity misplace buildings, animals, aircraft, and several assumptions about reality.
The agent from the rooftop crossed the broken road with a secure phone held before him.
"Director Fury wants to speak with you."
Lucius studied the phone. "I have a headache."
Lucius pointed toward Thor. "The large blond over there is a prince; you may consider him a diplomat."
Thor accepted the device before the agent could object. "Fury, the enemy has fallen, their king has been destroyed by Asgard's Champion, Midgard is safe."
Lucius stopped listening. Fury would ask about the vanished vessel, the dead Dark Elves, the residue, the portals, and which government agency possessed the best claim to things it had failed to capture. Thor could explain inter-realm victory until the phone surrendered.
Jane approached with Darcy and the intern several paces behind her. Dust marked one side of her face, and both hands remained closed around the sensor Darcy had caught for her.
Lucius raised the crimson mass higher.
"Do you see the containment cage, Doctor Foster?"
Jane looked from the twisting substance to him.
"When a scientist encounters an unknown alien substance, she isolates it. She uses tools, records the conditions, and avoids inserting any part of her body until she knows whether the substance causes poisoning, possession, disintegration, or an inconvenient pregnancy."
Darcy opened her mouth, considered her prior encounter with the man and the cameras, and closed it again.
"You walked into an alien ruin by chance and plunged your bare hand into something you could not identify," Lucius continued. "A monkey in a jungle has the excuse of lacking a doctorate."
Jane's fingers tightened around the sensor. "I didn't know what it was."
"That is generally when precautions become useful."
"I didn't ask Malekith to invade Asgard."
"You carried the one thing he wanted into it. Had you left the substance where you found it, in another realm, he would have had no reason to follow you to Asgard or Greenwich. People died in both places because a trained scientist abandoned the part of her profession intended to prevent exactly this sort of disaster."
He looked at the defeated expression on Jane's face and chuckled.
"Do not worry, Doctor. I know a bald bitch who poked at an alien cube until an army came through it. Your colleague, Dr Selvig, built the door. One might think humanity would learn after the first catastrophe."
The phones kept recording. Jane looked past Lucius at the damaged intersection, where emergency crews were pulling the injured toward waiting ambulances. The surviving Dark Elves above Venus remained outside every account except his own.
Thor ended the call and returned the phone to its relieved owner. He came to Jane's side, placed one hand on her shoulder, and drew her against his chest. Her forehead rested beneath his chin while the sensor hung loose in one hand. He turned to Lucius.
"We must return to Asgard; my father must hear what happened to Malekith, and the Aether must be placed beyond the reach of Midgard."
Lucius rotated the telekinetic cage above his palm. "He can have it. The thing has become boring now that everyone who wanted it is dead. Do you think the king will commission the dwarves to make Uru underwear matching my armour?"
Thor blinked. "I will ask Father."
Jane stepped away from Thor.
"I'd like to stay here."
Thor's attention settled on her. "Jane?"
"I need to think. About Asgard, about this, about all of it."
He glanced toward Lucius, found no useful assistance there, and took both of Jane's hands. "Then think here, if that is what you need. I will speak with Father and return as soon as I am able."
Jane nodded without promising that the answer would please him.
Thor lifted his head toward the open sky. "Heimdall!"
The Bifrost answered with a column of colour. Lucius and Thor vanished from Greenwich, leaving a scorched mark among the wreckage and Jane standing beyond its edge.
-
Heimdall waited in the observatory with both hands resting on Gjallarhorn. His expression held the composed satisfaction of a man whose retaliation had delivered Lucius to exactly the catastrophe he claimed not to want.
Lucius crossed the distance and punched him in the face.
The blow lifted Heimdall from the platform and drove him into the curved wall. Gold armour struck metal with enough force to shake dust from the observatory's ribs.
Thor looked from the empty place beside the mechanism to the Guardian embedded several feet away.
"Was that necessary?"
"That was for Greenwich."
Heimdall pulled himself free and straightened. Blood touched one corner of his mouth, but his voice remained level. "Greenwich was where the Champion of Asgard was required."
"I am not your problem solver, Guardian. Volunteer me again, and I will break more than your nose."
Thor placed himself between them. "Malekith is dead. We should report to Father before another dispute damages the observatory."
They walked toward the palace.
The throne room received the news in private. Odin sat with Gungnir at his side while Thor gave the account plainly: Malekith had failed to use the Aether during the Convergence, Lucius had destroyed the final surface force, and the Dark Elf king was dead.
Lucius guided the caged crimson mass into the Asgardian vessel prepared for it. The seal closed around a harmless imitation while the real Stone remained where neither Odin nor Heimdall had found it.
"The threat is ended," Thor concluded. "Jane is free of the Aether, and I would like to return to her."
Odin's gaze moved from his son to Lucius. For a moment, the king's expression seemed almost too carefully arranged.
"You have discharged your duty to Asgard. Return to Midgard with my blessing, my son."
Thor bowed.
Lucius inclined his head, accepted the royal approval at its advertised value, and left the audience. His Asgardian residence offered better wine, softer furniture, and two women who had taken his unexplained return from another invasion as evidence that the evening should resume.
He saw no reason to correct them.
-
The next morning, Asgard's throne room stood quiet.
The king sat alone beneath the high arches, one hand resting on Gungnir and the other against the carved arm of the throne. A life-sized illusion appeared beside him without warning and leaned against the opposite armrest.
"I told you our next meeting would be in a better place, Loki."
The king did not move.
Lucius looked around the throne room. "The throne suits you. Much better than the cell."
Odin's face shifted by less than an inch. The change was enough.
"You presume much, Champion."
"Oh, I would like those Uru underwear, Loki." Lucius lowered his voice and added in a more serious tone. "Keep the old man alive. There is more than this throne tied to his life, and I dislike avoidable apocalypses interfering with my property."
The illusion disappeared.
Loki remained seated, staring at the empty armrest. Then the corner of his mouth rose.
By midday, the Prince and the Champion stood before Heimdall again. The Guardian's bruised nose made the welcome colder. The authority of the throne remained valid, so Gjallarhorn turned, and the Bifrost carried them toward Midgard.
-
Tony Stark had built fourteen plans before breakfast and dismantled thirteen of them himself.
The remaining proposal occupied three laboratory screens. It distributed detection, analysis, and response across several independent systems so that one portal, one captured facility, or one compromised command centre could not blind the planet. It also required alien technology Lucius had stolen, governments willing to share control, enhanced people willing to accept orders, and enough time to build everything before the next god developed an interest in Manhattan.
Tony closed the decorative diagram and reopened Fury's call record. The Director had contacted him after the Dark Elf vessel vanished above Greenwich. SHIELD had lost an aircraft, the missiles from the second had failed, and the intact alien ship had disappeared while Lucius stood aboard it. By the time Tony found the live footage, Lucius was back on the street, disposing of the remaining army for an audience.
Earth could not keep depending on Lucius, deciding that rescue suited him. Thor was not an emergency service, and the next alien force might avoid bringing a convenient king, command ship, and single public battlefield.
JARVIS placed the United Nations working draft beside the defence model.
"The international working draft has been updated, sir."
Tony read the first page, then skipped to the sections its authors had hidden beneath compensation and public safety. Enhanced individuals would be asked to serve during designated emergencies. Those who accepted would receive payment, supervision, and permanent monitoring. Those who refused would be fitted with inhibitor collars.
"Asked," Tony repeated.
"That is the term used throughout the document."
"Nothing protects voluntary service like a government necklace."
The proposal carried United Nations language and no public author. Fury had identified the World Security Council behind it, although most officials debating the draft did not know the Council existed. They believed they were negotiating oversight. The Council was designing ownership.
Tony enlarged the collar provision. SHIELD had already placed one around Lucius before discovering that confinement worked poorly on a man capable of dismantling the institution from his bedroom. Whoever wrote this version had treated the lesson as insufficiently expensive.
He removed the government-command layer from plan fourteen. The rest of the design collapsed with it.
"Delete it."
"The defence proposal or the international draft?"
"If only one of those were legal."
Plan fourteen vanished. Tony opened a blank workspace and began again.
-
A diplomatic aircraft from Wakanda landed in New York before noon.
To the airport staff, it belonged to a poor African country whose king had crossed an ocean after the latest attack on the city. The aircraft was restrained by Wakandan standards, its technology concealed beneath components foreign inspectors would recognise, and its passengers carried credentials that turned questions into bows.
King T'Chaka descended first.
He paused when his feet touched American soil and looked toward the distant outline of the city. New York had survived gods, aliens, enhanced men, and its own government. Somewhere beyond that skyline lived the second thief arrogant enough to sell what Wakanda alone had the right to possess.