"So, you will not be gone for too terribly long, correct?" Frigga asked, worry behind her beautiful eyes
"No, mother," Loki smiled and planted a loving kiss on her cheek "we will return frequently, have no fear." Frigga just nodded before wrapping her son in her arms, whispering sweet nothings into his ear before letting him go to encase her other son in her loving embrace. Thor was not used to Loki being the center of attention for his parents, had it been this time a year ago and Thor might've been jealous and angry. It seemed foolish to him now that he had ever strived to ensure he was the favorite, that he had ever taken pride in tearing down his precious little brother.
Tony was surprised when he felt the woman's arms wrap around him. "Starkson, you are our son now, protect Loki, please." Frigga said as she squeezed him like only a mother can "You have been gifted with immortality, so I pray it is not too much to ask you to love my boy till the end of your days."
"I was planning on it." Tony smiled as she released him. She graced him with a grateful smile before bidding farewell to the rest of the team.
Odin's good-byes were much less touching, but pleasant all the same. He clapped his sons, and Tony, on the shoulders and shook the others hands. Soon, the gods were tumbling through the Bifrost, Tony and Loki's hands clasped tightly together.

---

When they were deposited gracefully onto the ground it was not, as Loki had expected, the Stark tower. Instead, they stood on a stage, thousands of people standing before them. The noise was deafening and sent the poor god of mischief into a state of utter confusion.
"What is going on?" Loki asked, turning his head to see his team grinning at him.
"You're a hero, Lokster." Bruce smiled "We had to find something to do while you recovered and we figured telling the press about how you saved Midgard was a pretty good way to pass the time."
"We won't be here long." Tony reassured the overwhelmed god "We just wanted to make an entrance."
"An entrance?" Loki asked, a mischievous glint in his green eyes
"Loki…" Tony began, but was cut off as Loki scooped the god of rebirth into his arms and crashed their lips together. This was met with a frenzied uproar from the crowd as thousands of camera flashes erupted all at once.
"Midgardians!" Loki grinned, his voice magically intensified "I am not the hero." He put an arm around Tony's waist and smiled at the team "These people beside me, my friends, my team, they are the heroes! They sacrificed their mortality to retrieve me! So today I introduce to you The god of leadership, The god of control, The god of sight, The goddess of shadows…" He indicated each member with a graceful flourish of his hand before turning his face to an expectant Tony "And my personal favorite, my…" then, in the space of a breath, Loki felt his mind stop. What was Tony to him? They had never labeled it, they had just accepted that they were what they were. He knew the word the Midgardians used to describe a man you were involved with, but were not married to, but did Tony want to be that? Did Tony want to be Loki's anything? He looked into the chocolate eyes he so loved and decided, fuck it, he's my everything "… boyfriend, The god of rebirth!" There, he had said it. The joy that flooded Tony's eyes told Loki that he had most definitely made the right choice.
"Jesus," Tony breathed "I love you." He smirked as he pulled the other god down so their lips could crash together once more.

---

"I am the god of fucking sight!" Clint grinned as he stood on the countertop of Tony's floor's kitchen
"Well, you have a fucking low alcohol tolerance level for a god!" Tony smirked. Clint was on his twenty-fifth bottle of alcohol and was the first so far to feel the buzz of intoxication.
Tony was sitting on Loki's lap, on his fiftieth bottle of bourbon and was hardly feeling a thing. Natasha and Bruce were reaching the edge of their tolerance quickly, leaving only Steve, Thor, Tony and Loki on the sober train. They were celebrating and testing out their new limitations all at the same time, which had seemed fine before but now made it clear that they either needed to buy cheaper alcohol or buy stronger alcohol. The latter seemed like a better plan. They exchanged lopsided grins occasionally, eyes meeting eyes and happiness matching happiness as they drank and laughed like they had feared they would never be able to do again. The drank and laughed because Loki was healthy, because they were all alive, because Thanos was dead, because they knew that they would be able to drink and laugh together until the end of time. They would be drinking and laughing through countless generations of people, when the people they knew now were long since gone and buried. They would drink and laugh for centuries, they would drink and laugh together until their long lives were drawn to a close and each one greeted death as a friend. It was not every day that you cheat death, but the Avengers had. They would be the protectors of Midgard and Asgard for a long time and that was ok. As long as they were together, as long as Tony could sit on Loki's lap and nuzzle the other god's neck, Thor could laugh so hard the building shook, Clint could get drunk and perch on the rafters only to wake up there in the morning and fall heavily to the floor, Natasha could manage to look beautiful and wasted at the same time, Bruce could recite every element in the periodic table in order no matter how intoxicated he was, Steve still manage to seem authoritative while laying upside-down on a couch and Loki could kiss Tony's forehead and tell him he loved him, then they knew that they would be drinking and laughing until the end of time.

---

The team jumped to their feet (or attempted to) and a crash jolted them awake.
"Fucking hell!" Tony griped, having been knocked to the floor when Loki had tried at leap from the couch.
"What was that?" Natasha asked, rubbing her blood-shot eyes. She was beside Loki, which was impressive considering that she had fallen asleep at the counter across the room.
"I'll give you three guesses" Bruce grumbled, rubbing his temples
"Fuck" Clint groaned from his spot on the ground "why do I always do that?"
"Father did say god of sight, right?" Loki asked, a smirk tugging at his lips "Not got of birds or drunken stupors?" They all chuckled as Clint got heavily to his feet.
"I hate you guys sometimes"
"We know" Tony snickered

---

"Sir, Director Fury is here" Jarvis said, making the three hung-over gods cringe.
"Send him up, Jay" Tony said, walking over to the pot that had begun brewing the second they woke up. He loved his house sometimes.
"I'll make breakfast" Loki said, rubbing his tired eyes and cracking his neck loudly

---

"Morning, Director" Tony grinned over his mug as the elevator deposited Fury onto the floor.
"It's four in the afternoon." Fury couldn't help but feel his lips twitch as he took in the sight before him. Loki and Steve were hard at work making a breakfast of pancakes and omelets. Tony was sitting on the counter, not caring that he was in the way as Loki and Steve maneuvered around him. Clint, Natasha and Bruce had collapsed on the couches and made no signs of getting up until further notice (or breakfast was ready, either one). Thor was busying himself by smashing Tony's poor microwave to pieces after he had forgotten, once again, that metal could not go in it and it had, once again, burst into flames. "I see you all have been celebrating." He indicated the hundreds of bottles littering the floor.
"So far," Tony grinned at the man "we've figured out that it takes exactly twenty bottles of scotch for Clint to get plastered. It takes Nat and Bruce forty bottles of vodka each, and as for the rest of us, we haven't found our limit yet."
"Glad you're all being productive." He rolled his eye and smirked at them.
"Would you like some breakfast, Director?" Loki offered, smacking Tony lightly as the god made an attempt to palm the front of his pajama pants. He had been too tired to get up the night before, but had had enough energy to magic himself into the pajama pants Tony had given to him as a joke and a black t-shirt. The pajama pants had tiny iron mans on them, they made Loki smile, they made Tony hard.
"Why not." Fury shrugged, not really up to maintaining his placid physique. Fury was happy, for once everything seemed to be going well. So, he allowed himself to make his way through the sea of bottles and to the counter where he sat.
"So, Nick," Tony looked at him over his shoulder "how about it? The seven of us, what do you think?"
"I think that I pity the hundreds of generations that will be under your watch." He didn't mean it, they all knew that. He was proud, for obvious reasons. No one, besides himself, had believed the Avengers initiative could work. No one thought that these "unstable" people could work together. How wrong they had been, not only were they able to work together, but they had gone far beyond it. The Avengers were no longer six people with extraordinary abilities, they were now seven gods. They were seven gods that had become so close-knit and so inseparable that it was hard to believe they had once not been the Avengers. It was hard, now, to remember a time when Tony was just a business man in a very cool suit, Clint and Natasha were his employees and only his, when Bruce and Steve were hiding away from a society that didn't understand them, when Thor was an untouchable god and Loki was his unstable little brother. Now, they were the Avengers, it had become their identity, their life. They had sacrificed everything in order to ensure that it would always be the seven of them. Now, Tony was the god of rebirth, Steve was the god of leadership, Clint was the god of sight, Bruce was the god of control and Natasha was the goddess of shadows. Thor was a friend and Loki was an undeniably vital part of the team. Had they really ever not been the Avengers?
"Hey, Nick," Tony said, waving a hand in front of the one-eyed man's face "you still with us?"
"What?" the director asked, refocusing his eye and his mind from where he had spaced out
"My girlfriend and Steve finished cooking, come and eat."
"I'm not your girlfriend!" Loki barked from the dining room table, but couldn't help but blush despite himself.
"Whatever" Tony smirked, walking up beside the god and crashing their lips together. He pulled back after a second and sat in the chair beside Loki. As soon as Fury took his seat, the frenzy began. They were like children and they didn't care. Clint was yelling at Thor for "taking half the stack of pancakes", Natasha was fuming as Thor attempted to throw a syrupy pancake at Clint but ended up hitting her, Bruce was yelling at Clint to "not instigate Thor", Steve was yelling at them to "stop acting like children". That left Loki, Tony and Fury to stare at them all as they were able to pile their plates high with food without being noticed. Eventually, everything calmed down and Loki was forced to conger up some extra food after every scrap had been claimed.
"I must say," Fury said, looking at the team from over the top of his mug of coffee "you all are probably the strangest team I've ever met."
"Hey," Tony grinned "you're the one who put us all together."
Fury shrugged before standing from his chair "And I wouldn't change a thing."
They all looked at each other, surprised by the sentiment as Fury walked calmly to the elevator.
"Until next time," Fury said as he stepped into the elevator, then, he graced them with a smile, a genuine smile "good day, Avengers."
"Good day, Sir." They grinned as the doors slid shut.

Notes