Pocket-Sized Avengers: Earth's Tiniest Heroes (Pilot Post)

Ever since Christmas, Loki and I have had plenty of time to experiment with his newfound powers. We made slow progress and the tutoring sessions always left the both of us drained of good temperament and energy. It was grueling, menial, seemingly fruitless toil... and whatever other fancy word under the sun that means boring and difficult. Come January, the both of us were nearly to the end of our wits. Loki especially, as he couldn't shake the feeling that something was to come for the longest time. But one day, that thing did come. A thing monumental enough for Loki to write it himself.

***

January 3rd, 2018.
One week, three days, nine hours and fourteen minutes.

That's how long it had been since I'd gotten that feeling... a feeling that I was incomplete.

I know it's normal to feel that way sometimes. People and dolls alike can wedge themselves into depressive episodes, and, unless chronic or diagnosed by a psychiatrist, then you ought to be able to recover with time. 

But time was all that I had. I was good at counting, and I'd been doing a lot of it to steady my reckless mind. I'd count the number of steps I'd take to get from point A to point B. I'd count the number of times Elsa would say "well" when she was speaking. I'd count everything, from the infinite and ever-changing amount of paper snowflakes suspending from She's ceiling to the crown tines on Sven's antlers. Much like how Anelle loves to spend time with the humans' dogs, Sven had kept me company, distracting me from the ever present and persisting feeling of loss.

The morning of January 3rd, he became my buddy once more as I went for a walk around the same environment I've stayed in for three years, two months and... well, I haven't counted the days of that yet. She's family had been out since eight, something about a surgery She needed to go through, and knowing that only added to my dread. She's little sister remained at home, supposedly sound asleep in the room across from She's, yet I still heard small noises from inside. I had to be on guard.

Either I was imagining the noises, or the other dolls didn't seem to care. Some raided the pantry and some went to the basement for air hockey, while others went to be alone with a good book and an open window, but I found Elsa as she was looking for me in the upstairs hallway.

"Morning, Loki!" She waved, chipper and energized. I sort of envied her. "Ready to start today's training?"

I blinked, completely forgetting for a moment that Elsa had been helping me with my powers the past ten days. "She's gone."

"I know, it's the perfect time for this."

Before I could say, "Don't you realize what is going on?", Elsa was in the Room She Lives In, setting up a few random objects as obstacles and testing dummies. I sighed and followed her in, loyal Sven at my heels. Maybe this training session would be good to me and take my mind off some things.

I positioned myself a few foot's distance away from where Elsa stood and stretched out my shoulders. She clapped her hands once and rubbed them together. "Okay! Show me what you learned yesterday. Use your telekin- telekinesis, right? To levitate this paperclip." She raised the paperclip like a shield before her.

"A paperclip?"

"Yeah."

I waved my hand in the air. "Um... we've moved past that." I said. It was my way of saying, "I need a challenge. I won't improve unless you give me a challenge."

Elsa looked vaguely disappointed. "Oh. Okay, levitate this... here... this book."
It was a Junior Novelization, a summary of the first Avengers movie. Ironic, but not heavy. I raised my arms, the mysterious blue energy surrounding them, and lifted the book over Elsa's head. Telekinesis was the one thing I could do really well so far. Everything else was still rocky, but better than when we had first started, and certainly better than not having any knowledge of my true power at all. 

She clapped at me, impressed. It was a good trick, but I still wasn't satisfied. "Excellent! I think you've mastered that subject. What else can you do?"

That was the trouble with Elsa. I know she meant well, and I know I was the one who first asked her to tutor me, but she's wasn't well acquainted with teaching. She didn't even know what her pupil's skill set was.
My mouth repeated the same spiel before my mind had a chance to react. "Shape-shifting, creating power illusions, immortal strength, sorcery, mind control, and telekinesis."

Elsa wrung her hands, her eyes searching the room for clues that didn't appear. "Okay then. Let's go to shapeshifting. We haven't done that before. Why don't you try to be like Sven?"

Sven titled his head and made a questioning reindeer noise. "Hruh?"
I winced. "I'd rather not be Sven."
Elsa nodded. "You'd rather be a human doll, wouldn't you? Steve! Steve, come here a minute."
Elsa's boyfriend walked over but then he turned on his heel as soon as he saw what we were doing. He knew better- to stay away. "No offense to either of you, but this is your thing and your thing to do alone."
"Some help you are!" Elsa shouted, but Steve was already gone. She sighed. "Alright, well, fine. Can you try to make yourself look like me?"
I was hesitant for obvious reasons. I already wasn't in the mood to be doing this. Not today, with the world all wonky as it was. And shapeshifting was a whole another level, something the two of us had barely even touched on before. "Um... Elsa? That's more than a little weird."
"Ugh, why are you so difficult?" She fussed, but she didn't persist any further, my plight understood. "Okay, okay. I think we could both use a break. Class is over for today. Just... work on some stuff during your own time, okay?"
I felt defeat, knowing that only I had bested myself. I stared down at my hands, clenching and unclenching them. It was like there was a pattern in my calluses and plastic and paint that I couldn't read. And, being known as the best reader around, it frustrated me that this was one code I couldn't yet decipher. But I wasn't going to stop trying. And Elsa was right. She was lost, and I wanted to get back to my walk.

Sven, knowing better than to come with me this time, followed Elsa back to the dresser, where the other Frozen dolls were waiting. I watched as her sister Anna grabbed onto Elsa's wrists and pulled her up with the rest of them; Anelle, Kristoff, Nessarose, Elphaba, Idina and Olaf. Olaf was excitedly claiming that he'd found a new book that was a collection of Frozen stories and he couldn't wait to share it with them. I tore my eyes away from the scene to drown that wistful feeling. They had a team. Our human was, at her core, a collector, but that didn't mean everyone had dolls of their same species.
I made my way back to the door but was stopped short by a sudden silence from the dresser.
"Loki, are you okay?" Elsa asked, with concern in her voice.
"I'll be fine. I've got a headache is all. I think I'll just go and take a walk around the house for a bit."
"Do you want anyone to come with?"
"No thanks," I replied, probably a bit too quickly and harshly to someone who was trying to care for my well-being, so I softened the potential blow by adding, "Maybe later."
Elphie turned to her taller counterpart and shrugged, trying to brush me off and bring the group back together. I could still feel Nessa's eyes on me when I vanished through a crack in the door.
Passing She's little sister's room, I heard noises again, but these were different. These didn't sound like the kind a sleepy human might make upon waking, or something else, but rather noises that weren't past the door at all. It sounded like splashing water.
It's just one of the dogs taking a drink, I told myself, but when that foreboding feeling hit me again, this time at full strength, I knew it had to be something more. I quickened my casual pace to a brisk speedwalk, starting to take the stairs to the first floor one at a time. It's just one of the dogs taking a drink, I lied again. A really long drink.
I crept into the kitchen uneasily, watching out for any signs of movement. My eye caught on the ottoman in the living room... both dogs slept peacefully on top. Something red, black, silver, and gold was making the splashing noises. It had its back turned to me, but I still recognized the figure. My suspense was replaced with a quiet but powerful rage.
It was a Thor doll, same as the ones that bullied me back at the shop at Disney.
And he was washing his face in the dogs' water dish.

In retrospect, I probably would have laughed to have seen this. Typical Thor. But I was far too fearful and angry to think of anything else but focusing on the task at hand. Surges of the doll equivalent of adrenaline helped guide me closer to him and strengthen me with the wrath I needed to knock him out cold. I had to do away with Thor before he hurt me- or She, if it came to that- now or ever again.
But I wasn't quiet enough. He must have heard me fuming. He looked over his shoulder, looked back at the dish, but then whirled around completely, probably realizing who it was.
"Brother!" Thor spluttered, the water soaking his face and beard and dripping from little tendrils of hair that had escaped his half-updo. He was grinning like an idiot and had the poor decision of running over to me and wrapping me in a tight violation of personal space.
Thor was ridiculously happy, but little did he know my emotions were the opposite. I would have shot him back with an energy blast, but I was feeling far from love, and my powers don't work without it. Luckily I still had my "immortal strength". I slipped from his grasp of a hug and stepped backwards, seething.
"You are not welcome here!" I shouted, holding nothing back.
Thor's face fell, but only slightly, as he remained stubborn as I had expected. And dreaded.
"But..." His train of thought fell short of its tracks. "Brother..."
"You and I are not brothers!"
He shook his head like one of the dogs do after getting ear drops, his hateful head of hair flying out and spraying me in the face with leftover water. "I know you're adopted, but Odin-"
"I don't care about Odin!" Didn't he realize this wasn't a game? "You are not welcome here. You are a danger to me and to the humans. How did you get here?"
Thor looks slowly upwards, taking mental note of the cabinets and countertops high above our heads. "The kitchen? Oh, I just walked. It was simple really, I-"
"No, not that! Where did you come from? Did She purchase you?" What a mistake She had made!
Thor's face falls into confusion, a common look for a soft-headed character such as him. "Who is She?"
I scoffed, overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time, a frustrating combination. There was now a Thor in the house, but he wasn't turning out as nearly as awful as the Thors I had known were.

"Nevermind that! You need to leave." I pointed my staff at the laundry room door, hoping he knew how to open it himself.
Almost as if to spite me, the Thor figure sits right where he had been dripping. "No, I don't need to leave. I just got here. Brother, I-"
"Do not call me that."
"Fine, Loki-"
"Not that either." I was well aware of the power of words. I knew that by saying someone's name, or addressing them as someone close, you could have some amount of influence over them. I wasn't about to let that happen between me and this Thor doll.
"Then what am I to call you?"
I held the end of my scepter, the part I knew was meant to contain the tesseract, a few centimeters from Thor's chest. "Nothing. You won't be around for long."
Thor wasn't having any of that. He pushed off the ground with one hand and pushed away the tesseract with the other. "Would you stop threatening me and just listen for one second?" When he was standing, he was level with me, not taller. He had the same joints, the same kind of clothing, the same style of paint on his face. He was me- a 3.75 inch Avengers All Stars action figure. I cocked my head, wondering if I could learn to be patient with the kind of person he was.
"Fine," I grumbled. "What do you want?"
He grabs my shoulders. Again with the unwanted physical contact. "There are others."
What? "How do you know?"
"I don't know, but I do feel it."
I couldn't blame Thor for saying that. After all, that was how I had found him in the first place. It was instinct, not thought. It was a sense of being incomplete, and now I felt whole, although definitely more annoyed. Maybe that would pass with time.
Thor suddenly raised his head, almost like sniffing the air, then dashed away with a swish of his cape.
I gasped, stunned for a moment but took up after him. "Wait, you can't just do tha-" I cut my own sentence short, as it is difficult for someone to hear you speak when they are flying via holding onto the strap of a quickly rotating hammer. Mjölnir. I didn't even see it through all the chaos. Did that mean this Thor had powers, too?

I caught up with Thor, but that wasn't difficult. He's not exactly the most inconspicuous Avenger.
"They have to be around here somewhere!" Thor scowled, running about the parlor and kicking and tossing pillows from the couch around everywhere. I cringed, thinking of the mess we had to clean before the humans returned home.
"Yeah... you're not being very specific on who exactly is 'they'." My temper was mounting with the vague answers I received.
"We are missing something. Don't kid me. I know you feel it, too."
"Why would I kid...?" I was about to ask, before my mouth clamped shut. The god of mischief cannot be trusted. This Thor still thought me a trickster. "What feeling?" I finished.
"This vast, deep, hollow emptiness, as vast and deep and hollow as the well of Urd."
There was a tingling in the back of my head. Somehow, somewhere, Urd was a familiar name to me, but I couldn't yet place it. "What is Urd?"
"Who is Urd," Thor corrected me, sending another pillow flying. "That is what it feels like. Vast and deep and hollow and empty. And now we are tasked with finding something that will fill this emptiness." Thor drops a glass candle keeper like it was nothing. It makes contact with the wooden floor and shatters, the untraceable pieces scattering all over.
"GAH! Are you insane?!" I roared.
"I will be soon if we can't find them," Thor picked up on my rage a little too late. "I should probably explain. When I had first arrived here, I noticed there were plastic casings by the large green bin in the cold boxy place outside," Thor points by way of the garage, expecting me to visualize. "On these casings were photographs. Photographs of people I knew from my store, Tony Stark and Captain America and all sorts of others," Thor turns back to his work, whipping Mjolnir around and around again to hover up to the top of the parlor's bookshelf. The bookshelf was nothing like the one upstairs by the computer; it held family relics, dried roses, and framed photographs of people I'd never seen. "But nobody was in those casings. So they all must be in here. In this olive-painted prison."
I almost laughed if I didn't been so frustrated. "I'm not sure they'll be up there."
"Do you have a better plan?"

"Yes, actually," I remembered. "I heard noises coming from a room upstairs earlier today. Your friends might be inside." Yes, and then once he found them, they could all escort themselves out this door and out of our lives. Obviously, I exempted that last part.
"Excellent!" Thor swooped down and landed expertly at my side. He clapped my back, and I flinched in response. It was most likely his way of saying "let's go". I didn't have a choice in the matter whether or not I stayed behind. I was right. It became my duty to guide Thor upstairs.
"Can't you do this alone?"
"Well, you seem to know this place better than I! How long have you been here?"
"November 22nd, 2014," I sighed a little. Just the nostalgia of my finding day... I had been saved. I shook my head so that these thoughts wouldn't escape and become words. "Though I didn't truly arrive until the 29th."
"See, I was right! Three years is a long time to be in one place."
"Maybe so," I whispered. "But you won't be here for that long. As soon as you find your friends, I want you to take them and then leave."
"No," he argued. "I plan on finding my friends and staying here for a very long time."
"But the humans..."
"Your humans will be fine! We are the Avengers, are we not? Well, maybe you aren't... but no matter. As long as we stay, everyone will be safe. It is amazing you have gotten by without us."
I was fuming quietly. Thors had a tendency to think they were so great, and this one wasn't any different. He was slow-thinking, brutish, reckless, and clumsy... yet there was some redemption in him. I couldn't quite place my finger in it, but ever since I had found him, my empty feeling had depleted. If Thor was feeling the same way, once he found his friends, I might be complete as well, as much as I hated to think about it.
"Here we are." I sighed.
"Are you certain of yourself?" Thor stepped forward and put his hand on the door across from She's as if he could detect sound vibrations. "I do not hear anything."
"It's there. Just take a look." My focus was wandering, because I'd rather be doing anything else. But Thor was right, the room was eerily quiet now. Whatever was behind was being smart, but there was no danger to be smart about. Unless...
I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. We were being watched. Somewhere across the way, in the guest room, the door was cracked, and something shiny and sharp was sticking its way through the opening. Then it pulled back ever so slowly and carefully, then it directed itself right at our head level. There was the straining noise of cord stretching tight.

Without a word, I ducked down and pulled Thor with me, forcing him to press down level with the carpet. The sharp thing was released, and it blew right past the place we'd been standing, where it connected with the wall behind us, leaving the tiniest dent.
"Odin's beard!" Thor exclaimed, fumbling around, but I kept a firm hand on his torso.
"Stay down!" I ordered. "We're being hunted."
Reluctantly, I removed my hand and stood again, pulling the object from its place in the wall.
"A sewing pin?!" Thor said incredulously, disobeying my order to lie low.
"Yeah."
"But why...?"
There was another near-undetectable straining noise, and another pin was released from the guest bedroom. It would have collided with my shoulder had I not caught it in midair. I was surprised with my own ability. I'd always been impressed with that trick Loki did in the first Avengers film, but I never thought I could do it myself.
One by one, little voices emerged from the guest room.
"Woah... he's good." Said a suave one.
"I told you to bring more arrows." Said a slightly nasal-y one.
"I'm Hawkeye! I only need one arrow." Somebody hissed.
"Is that why you used two?" The suave one mocked.
"Let's start throwing random stuff at them. Here... I found a penny." A husky, yet feminine voice suggested.
"A penny, Wanda?" The voice that probably belonged to the archer whisper-shouted.
"Yeah, just throw it like a Frisbee. It'll work."
"Then get Chris to do it!"
I turned to Thor, curious as to what he made of this situation, only to see his mouth agape and the corners of his eyes wrinkling with joy. "I know those names...!"
Before I could stop him, he broke stance and rushed towards the voices, Mjolnir in the air. He busted the door open and it swung wide to reveal five faces all cowering behind the doorframe. Each of them slunk out of hiding, somewhat embarrassed, and stood in formation.

From left to right, there was a woman with long brown hair and green eyes, a man with a yellow cape and equally yellow eyes, a man with sharp sunglasses and a bow in hand, a robot with red and gold, and a miniature version of Elsa's boyfriend, Steve. But Thor was not the only one to recognize these people. We now had a Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Iron Man, and Captain America, just as Thor had promised he saw. If dolls had organs, my heart would have dropped to my stomach.
"My friends!" Thor cried, opening his heavy arms wide and bending down to hug his new victims. A few, like Hawkeye and Iron Man, resisted, but Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Captain America took it awkwardly.
Thor broke away from the mini-Steve, who was left dazed, and said, "We have been searching for you! Why were you throwing needles at us just now?"
"Not at you, exactly," Iron Man points a finger my way. "More at you. Only you're both the same height, and Hawkeye never misses, so..." he shrugged his armor-plated shoulders. "Here we are. Didn't expect you to actually catch one of them, though. Impressive."
Thor realized that all eyes were on me. "Everyone, this is my brother, Loki."
So much for the whole "don't call me by my name or familial relation" thing.
"We noticed." Hawkeye spat. There was something about me that he despised already. Why?
"Anyway, now that you've discovered us cowering like wimps in the corner, want to join us?" Iron Man suggested.
"Join what?" Thor asked.
"We call ourselves 'The Pocket-Sized Avengers, Earth's Tiniest Heroes'." Said the mini-Steve.
"I did not agree to that name, Chris."
Chris, the mini-Steve, ignored Iron Man's last comment. "Tony, you didn't vote."
"This isn't a democracy."
Chris sighed. "We're on a mission to find the-" His sentence was cut abruptly short by an elbow to the torso. Chris looked up after doubling over and his eyes caught me. His expression changed quickly, as if he realized now why he was stopped. The god of mischief is not to be trusted.
"I am honored by this request," Thor said, attempting to be respectful by bowing his head. "Though I would have called it the Revengers."

"You can be on our team, then. We could use a Thor," I could feel Hawkeye's scrutinizing gaze sharpen in my direction under those purple-tinted sunglasses. "But villains are not allowed." I saw him raise his bow steadily. I gulped. Where had he gotten another sewing pin?
"Hold on there, Katniss," said Tony, stepping in front of their obvious leader. "I'm starting to see this guy's point of view. Why can't the villain be a part of our group? He's done nothing to us. Heck, we don't even know him. Could be a nice guy."
"Thank you, Man of Iron!" Thor cried, speaking for me.
"Uh, actually," Tony cleared his throat. "I am Iron Man, but props to you for trying."
"He had me hypnotized for nearly the whole entirety of the first Avengers movie!" Hawkeye seethed.
"He did, or his character did?" The quiet Vision spoke.
Hawkeye looked to think on this for a moment. "Well, I guess we could consider you. What are your abilities that could be useful to the team?"
I recalled the list I read on back of my box again. I had it memorized by now thanks to Elsa's training. "Shape-shifting, creating power illusions, immortal strength, sorcery, mind control, and telekinesis."
Tony nodded at Chris, impressed with me once more. Vision stared me down, not with aggression, but curiosity, and Scarlet Witch stepped up to the front to grab Hawkeye's bow arm gently.
"Hawkeye, please," she cooed, her voice honeyed with a more powerful influence over the mind than my tesseract could ever posses. "This man has a whole slew of useful talents, and not to mention the fact that we're still fairly new. How are we going to navigate the house to help anyone? We'll get lost and fail the mission. He-" She pointed in my direction. "Has been here longer than we have, right, darling?"
I only nodded in reply. Since when had anyone ever called me darling? Not even Nessa was that bold.
"You see, Clint? He knows his way around. Let him join. Please." Her hand moved up and down Hawkeye's arm in a petting gesture.
"Fine, whatever!" Hawkeye's tone made him sound ready to storm away, but he clearly didn't want Wanda to stop her charmspeak. "But you're training him, Wanda."
"Not a problem. I'll have the new guy ready in no time, don't worry about a thing." The team left, but Wanda, Thor and I stayed behind. Wanda flashed me a smile and skipped over.

"Sorry about that," Wanda apologized, though by the gleam in her brown eyes, she was proud that she had melted Hawkeye's ice-cold heart, at least for a minute or two. "He just needs some convincing at times."
"You are quite good at your practice!" Thor commented loudly.
Wanda blushed shyly. "Yes, I suppose I am," she brushed a lock of reddish-brown hair away from her face. "I may have been gifted with hexes and chaos magic, but I have a few other tricks up my sleeve."
"Nice work, then." Thor laughed in a jolly fashion.
Wanda stuck out her hand with straightforwardness. "Welcome to the Pocket-Sized Avengers."
Thor took it and almost broke her hand, but Wanda didn't flinch. Then she did the unthinkable- she reached out her hand to me.
"Why are you...?"
"You have been recruited, have you not?"
"But Hawkeye thinks I..."
Wanda wasn't having any of my hesitation. She bent over forward to grab the hand at my side and shook it firmly. "I'm Wanda Maximoff. Otherwise known as Scarlet Witch. You seem to have a pretty strong reputation around here already. Name?"
"Loki. Of Jotunheim."
Thor disagreed. "Yes, but also of Asgard. You may be son of Laufey, but you are blood brothers with Odin. And, in the comics, adopted brothers with me."
"What's he talking about?"
"Norse mythology," I replied, finally able to pinpoint it. I'd never met a Thor who was a mythology buff. That would explain his references to the well of Urd from earlier. "I know only a little myself. A lot of what we are defied the original sources."
"I see..." said Wanda. "Anyways, don't let Hawkeye unnerve you. He's a family man once you get to know him. That's why we elected him our leader. He's just a little defensive towards you because of the whole brainwashing thing. He's a bit hung up on his own character. But he's the newest out of all of us. Getting over that will take some time."

"Yeah." I agreed, not yet sure what to make out of all of this. Only minutes earlier, I'd been walking around the hallways here, feeling depressed and alone, and now I was a part of a new heroic initiative with many other dolls like me.
The other Avengers dolls were having a group huddle around Hawkeye, who seemed to be spelling out some sort of instructions to carry out their mission.
"What was the soldier about to say?"
Wanda rolled her eyes. "Call him Chris. He almost spilled out our entire mission to some outsiders without the Hawkeye's approval. That's a big no-no if you hadn't already guessed. But since you two are part of us now..." Wanda beckoned Thor and I to lean down so we were ear-level with her mouth. "We're searching for the infinity stones."
"Question. What are infinity stones?"
Wanda was addled at Thor's incompetence. "How can you not- uh... yeah. We really don't know, either. But they sound like good things to have. To keep out of the hands of our enemies, you know what I'm saying?"
"You have enemies?" I still had this itching feeling that I was seen as an enemy.
"Potentially. Think about it. We're three-and-three-fourths inch Avengers All Stars figures. We may be a rare find now, but I'm sure they made loads of us. Including the villains. I mean, they had to, right? I'm from 'Age of Ultron'. So there's got to be an Ultron doll somewhere."
"I've never seen one around here. I didn't think She owned any more dolls like me until today."
Refueled with hope, Wanda pointed in the air. "That's exactly right. You don't think. You don't know. Somebody could be out there- somebody who wants the infinity stones more than us. Someone who knows all the wicked and terrible things to do with them. So we've got to beat them to the punch."
Wanda lead us a safe distance behind the rest of the group as they wandered about the house, conversing in hushed and serious tones. Thor walked beside the two of us. Sometimes I thought that he listened to what Wanda and I were saying, and sometimes I wasn't sure where his mind went. When the group before us stopped to observe the new grounds known as the first floor, what I had been thinking the whole time finally came from my mouth.

"Wanda- you don't really believe that the infinity stones are here, do you? Or even if they are real?"
She flexed her fingers, cracking them for no reason. A bad habit, I supposed. "Personally, I'm not too sure what to think of it yet. We just got here at Christmastime, but we hadn't been opened until today. And as soon as we were... poof! The guys spring into action, like they're listless or something. I didn't want to be left behind, so I went along with everything they did. But the sad truth of the matter is that I'm not one of the guys."
"Maybe not," I said, the words coming quickly. "But you were the first to offer training me, while none of the others did. However, I already have a trainer myself, so you don't need to bother with-"
"No! I want to be a trainer... wait, you already have one? Who? Someone I've met?"
My mind flashes back to Elsa, and all the other dolls in the Room She Lives In. What would they make of these new dolls like me?
"No. Not yet."
"Maybe eventually? If we're going to find these so-called 'infinity stones', we're going to need a bigger team."
"Bigger, yeah." I agreed, thinking of Elsa and Anna's sixteen-inch height. They weren't much of a fighting type, but with such a large quest ahead of us, I was sure they could be persuaded to help.
To my surprise, Hawkeye turns to me. "We'll be needing a tour of the home." It's a command, not a request. I go along with it. To my displeasure, it looked like these Pocket-Sized Avengers would be with us for good. At least Wanda was pleasant towards me, as was Thor. Nothing seemed to be turning out as bad as I had expected. That is, until we made it to the space behind the front door of the home.
A deep rumbling noise started up nearby, vibrating the wooden floor beneath our feet.
"What is this?" Thor cried, swatting at an invisible enemy with his hammer.
"The humans are home." I whispered, my breath dying out in a speechless panic.
"Everyone to their places!" Hawkeye barked. "Remember where we were!"
Hawkeye lead the team upstairs and back towards the guest room, some of them treading faster than others. Because they had the advantage of flight, Tony and Thor stayed a few seconds behind. Tony was observing a dark gray plastic shape, which had stuck itself into the rug by the door.

"What did you find?" I asked.
"Rhodey's gun."
"Who's?"
Tony looked up. I could almost feel the emotion behind his expressionless mask. "James Rhodes. War Machine."
"We have one of those, too?" Thor asked, bewildered.
"Guess so, point break. Looks like we're out on the hunt for more than just the infinity stones."
With a crack and a squeak, the door to the laundry room opened and three of the humans poured through. The eldest male, the eldest female, and She, who sounded to be slurring her words.
"Give me a big smile!" The one She called "mom" cooed. "No more wisdom teeth!"
I felt relief from a pain I hadn't realized was still there. She went to go get her teeth removed, a common human practice around her age. So that's all it was. Nothing to worry about.
Thor shook me from my temporary daze. "Brother! Grab on!" He bending over from the first step, one arm reaching out to me while the other held Mjolnir high above his blonde mane. "I shall escort you upstairs! Otherwise the humans will find you!"
Maybe that's what I want, I thought, before thinking myself to be crazy. Seeing She right now was less important than breaking the Code of Dolls. I had to remember that.
Thor saw my reluctance. "You still don't trust me, brother?"
"Would you?" It was like he expected me to look over the fact that we'd only just met. But I heard footsteps approaching, so I had no choice but to hold onto the arm of a near-stranger as he hurled us both into the air. And I learned something then. Flying is most likely much nicer when you are the one in control.
We tumbled over each other when Thor knocked us into the ledge of the top stair, as he wasn't used to carrying a doubled amount of weight. I didn't have time to give Thor a halfhearted thanks for the ride before the house started to finally awake, namely She's little sister. I dashed to the Room She Lives In with near-silence and shut the door behind me.
The Frozen Family, who was oblivious to my adventure, greeted me as if I only had really gone for a walk and not discovered another world.
"Hey, Loki," said Elsa. "Where have you been? You look frazzled."
I stood there, with my back to the door, as I tried to steady my busy mind. Oddly enough, I felt a smile creep onto my face. "I'm sorry, but that's classified. For now."
The corner of Elphaba's lip curled up in a sneer. She turned and hissed to her sister Nessa. "Classified? What does he mean by classified?"
How many people can say the excitement of their day had already begun at 10:00am? On any other day of winter break, She would still be asleep. And here I was, with a family to call my own and a mission to take part in. Just touching on the thought made me anxious. I'd have to take some time to process this. I made my way over to She's window to open the blinds and let some light in. Then maybe I'll sit and think awhile. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure where anything was going yet, honestly.
When Nessa thought that I was out of earshot, I heard her reply to Elphie, "I don't know, but I intend to find out."
"One day, Nessa," I promised, more to myself than to her. Secrets couldn't stay that way for long around here, and I knew that. "One day."

-Loki