Two of A Kind

1 - Welcome... I Guess.

Loki pulled his helmet from his head, throwing it across the room in anger. "Damn it, Barton!"

Clint raised an eyebrow, his trigger finger itching to pull an arrow from his quiver and send it straight through one of the green, glaring eyes focused on him.

"You dropped the ball, Legolas." Tony interrupted, trying to  diffuse the situation.

"Dropped the ball?" Loki fumed. "He nearly got me killed!"

"Calm down, oh green and gold one." A new, unexpected voice called from the top of Tony's bookshelf, drawing everyone's attention.

The thin, barely clad female perched there smirked and waved her fingers at the trio as the others started to file in.

"Security Breach." Tony yelled, prompting the Tower's AI to lock all the doors around them.

She giggled.

"Who is that?" Natasha asked, eyeing the girl's outfit skeptically. How exactly was she wearing shorts that looked like they were entirely made of leaves, twigs, and maybe some mud? And what exactly was her shirt made of? Spanish moss? Whatever it was, it was barely covering her.

"Hi." The girl smiled, jumping from her perch and, to everyone's amazement,  making a delicate landing directly in front of Natasha. "I'm Aite." She grabbed Natasha's hand and pumped a few times. "Absolutely charmed to meet you, Natasha. Or would you rather I call you Black Widow? Or Black? Or Ms. Widdow?" She cocked her head to the side for a moment, as if deep in thought.

"Oh well. Guess it doesn't matter,  being as you'll all be dead if my plan doesn't work out." She abruptly turned and plopped herself down on the nearest chair, throwing her legs over one armrest and her head over the other. She lay her head back as far as she could, giggling again.

"Dead? All of us?" Bruce asked.

"Yep." She popped her p as if they were discussing nothing more serious than the weather. "Even you, mister tall, green, and ferocious. " She eyed him for a moment. "I like this look better, by the way. Less snarly."

"Thank you?" Bruce answered, unsure how to take this strange new comer.

"Welcome, cutie." She smiled and winked.

"Friday! Cross reference the name Audi."

"That's  Aite. A. I. T. E." The girl sighed. "Friday, you may want to start with Anchient Greek mythology." She threw her arm over her eyes and sighed. "Rome was beautiful back then. Now it's a tourist trap full of crappy art and even crappier people."

"Aite. Greek Godess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and folly. Most notably the decision or action that brings a hero to ruin." Friday answered.

Aite sighed dramatically. "If it is not my decision to make, I cannot make it. I can only try to influence people. If they make their decisions against my council,  how it that my fault?"

"She has a point." Natasha added.

"I knew you were my favorite for a reason." Aite beamed.

"No offense, but we already have a God of Mischief we're trying to deal with. We don't really have room for another." Bruce interrupted.

Aite narrowed her eyes, as if scrutinizing his every word. "You really should let that whole 'she pushed me into a deep hole' thing go. She really likes you."

Bruce's jaw dropped.

"Or she did, until you started acting like a baby about it."

"First of all, it was an industrial pit-" Bruce started, only to be interpreted by Natasha.

"How could you possibly know that?" Natasha asked.

"Finally!" Aite threw her hands up in celebration and stood, bowing to Natasha. "Someone smart enough to ask the right questions."

"I'd like an answer to that one too. We were alone beside that pit."

"It's a stretch, but here we go." Aite sighed, materializing a half wall behind her so she could lean back without falling to the floor. "So, in my timeline, my universe if you will, the Avengers are dead. As well as half of the universe, but that's another story. You all die because he-" She pointed a finger toward Loki. "wasn't there to save him." She pointed toward Thor. "Set off some kind of weird butterfly effect kind of ripple that let Thanos kill all of you and snap half the universe away."

She waved her fingers in what looked like an absent gesture but materialized an apple into her hand. "So, I'm here to keep the King of Jotunheim from claiming his crown and turning his back on everyone." She bit into the apple, letting out a moan before going off on a separate tangent all together.

"Apples are also extinct in my timeline." She took another bite and let her eyes roll into the back of her head. "So good!"

"Are we actually believing all of this?" Bruce asked, turning toward Tony.

"Friday?"

"No idea, Boss. Want me to call Strange?"

Aite finished her apple and banished the core into the nearest trashcan with a flick of her wrist. "While you're at it, you might want to ask the good doctor if his time manipulating necklace had a coughing fit on him earlier today."

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"How else do you think I got here. Time travel is not on my list. Mind if I have another apple?" She twirled her fingers again, materializing a yellow one and motioning to Tony.

"Go for it. Golden Delicious, my favorite."

She pulled herself up on the half wall and swung her feet, turning the apple in her hands for a few seconds before deciding to take a bite. "Even better!"

A swirl of red light started glowing in the air between them, expanding until Dr. Strange could step through. "So you're the reason the eye of Agamotto has been acting up." He glared at her.

"Well, yeah." She shrugged, materializing a red apple and tossing it to him. "Surely, you didn't expect me to ignore your suggestion. That would just be rude."