I sprinted to the door just as Tony opened it, revealing six very battered up people standing there. Thor had a huge cut across one of his cheeks, Gamora's jacket looked ripped up, and she supported a limping Peter Quill. Groot was missing a bit of his arm, and Rocket was the only one in the group who didn't look traumatised. I gasped, helping the group in and let them settle on the sofas before I asked what had even happened. Loki had joined the group at some point, and he was actually looking worried as he watched Thor grab a wet cloth to clean his face with. Tony had also obviously had the same idea as me, as he didn't ask any of them what had happened until we made sure no one was in any serious danger. "Did the Nova Corps do this to you guys?" I asked softly when everyone seemed to have calmed.
Thor shook his head, "Oh, no. We were swarmed with these strange creatures as soon as they handed over the Power stone to us—it was like they just knew it was being moved. It was not hard to fight them off, but there were dozens. We just took a bit of a beating unexpectedly, but I assure you we are all okay. And, even better, we still have this..." he trailed off, stuffing his hand into one of his pockets and pulling out the silver orb I knew contained one of the most important things in the universe. I gasped, slowly taking it from Thor who was holding it out and almost immediately passing it over to Tony—even just its container being almost too hard to keep grip on with the amount of power I could just feel waiting inside, ready to be unleashed at any moment.
Gamora nodded, standing up from the sofa to go pour herself a glass of water. "Don't worry about us, really. It's nothing bad or like we haven't dealt with being thrown around a bit before. And anyway, Peters just being a baby about it as ususal—he's perfectly fine, tripped on a rock after we had taken out all the creatures who attacked us. Really, we're all fine. And we managed to get the stone back to earth safely, which is what matters the most anyway." She said with a small smile, but I couldn't help fell terrible. I had basically met the Guardians for a few minutes and told them to run headfirst into a dangerous mission without basically any other information? Sure, maybe they were fine, but what if they hadn't been? What if there had been more troops sent to try obtain the Power stone? What if it had opened? What if one of them had died? On a mission I'd given the go ahead to? It was painful to start spiraling so late in the night, but I couldn't help it.
"Thor, you're not going back to Asgard tonight as its already almost halfway through the night. Why don't you leave both the Tesseract and Power stone with me in the lab and go try rest for a while? There are a bunch of new rooms that have been furnished on the fifth floor since I realised we're going to be picking up a lot of stragglers throughout this mission. And that goes for all of you guys as well, don't even think about flying off into space already. You can find rooms you like on the fifth floor as well, and feel free to stick around here for as long as you like." Tony said as he took the Tesseract as well from a greatful looking Thor and bid us goodbye, before walking off to his lab. After sitting with Thor and the Guardians for a few more minutes, apologising profusely, I decided that there was no point waiting around downstairs as the newly returned travelers made their way up to rest for a bit.
As I made my way back up to my room to wait out the last few hours of darkness there, I found myself once again in the lift with Loki. I was in no mood to start a conversation, but I couldn't help reply when he started talking. "You realise it wasn't your fault, right?" I turned to look at the god immediately, a confused frown on my face as I tried to make sense of what I had just heard. For a second I had thought I'd misheard.
"W-what did you say?" I asked, and Loki sighed, rolling his eyes even though I was being completely genuine with my question to him.
"Your alien friends and Thor—they weren't injured because of you. Someone had to go there and get the stone anyway, and I'm sure they would rather obtain a few scratches here and there than have Thanos claim power over this world. I can practically hear you worrying about their state, once again. You do that way too often, by the way."
YOU ARE READING
ACATALEPSY ➺ loki
Abenteuerelaina wasn't meant to be dead, yet here she was, six years in the past, living with parents who mourned a death that had never happened. her death. on top of that, she may now have the chance to save the lives of people who she'd spent years watchi...
