Avengers

The next day, Luke had yet to finish his last game of chess with the god of dreams. Just as he was about to deliver checkmate, a knock at the door woke him.

"What the hell!" Luke lay in bed, not wanting to move, and sent a Ninja Soldier to see who it was.

"Oh, thanks. Luke? Where are you?" Tony's punchable voice rang out. It definitely wasn't because Tony had disturbed Luke's sweet dreams; his voice was simply especially punchable today.

"So what's up? Why are you here so early?"

Having finally dragged himself out of bed, Luke looked at the energetic Tony. "I didn't get to sleep until three last night. You should've gone to bed later than me, so how are you so full of energy?"

Luke yawned and went to splash some cold water on his face in the bathroom, which woke him up a little.

Coming out of the bathroom, he looked at Tony, whose face showed no trace of sleepiness and even bore a slight smile.

"So you succeeded last night?"

"Of course. Once I made my move, it was in the bag."

Tony spoke without a shred of modesty.

"Oh, please. You're lucky Pepper likes you. You're a middle-aged guy pushing forty. What are you showing off for?"

Luke glanced at the bulge of Tony's stomach and shook his head.

"You finally managed to turn all that fat into muscle in that cave, and not long after coming back, you turned it all into one big lump. So much for all that boxing practice."

Unconvinced, Tony sucked in his stomach, only to nearly pop a button at his collar. Luke turned his head away in disgust, not bothering to look at him anymore.

"So why did you come so early today?"

Taking hot fried dough sticks and soy milk from the Ninja Soldier beside him, Luke happily enjoyed his breakfast.

"Your breakfast looks pretty good. Is it some obscure delicacy?" Tony couldn't help asking as he watched Luke enjoy it.

"Fried dough sticks and soy milk. It's a traditional breakfast where I'm from, and it tastes pretty good. There's also steamed soup dumplings, fried dough sticks, egg pancakes, scallion pancakes, big pork buns, braised pork buns, fresh pork buns, cowpea buns..."

Once Luke got started, he couldn't stop. Tony helplessly gestured for him to be quiet.

"Fine, I admit your breakfast options are ten times as varied as mine, all right?" Tony said helplessly, thinking he would have to hire a professional Chinese chef when he got back to make a different breakfast for him and Pepper every day.

"Far more than ten times." Luke was a little speechless. When he first arrived in this world, breakfast had been either sandwiches or bread every morning, until he felt sick of eating them.

Later, he had simply found Chinese breakfast tutorials online and assigned ten Ninja Soldiers to learn from them. Then he made them compete for the position and kept the best one.

Tony couldn't be bothered to argue with Luke. After all, his breakfast really wasn't as varied as Luke's.

"That one-eyed director of yours called me first thing this morning and asked me to take you somewhere. He has something to tell us. Damn it, the guy woke Pepper up and got me kicked out."

"What!" Luke was utterly shocked.

"Pepper's dad agreed to let her live with you? Isn't that home delivery?"

"Actually, I convinced him after I confessed to Pepper last night." As Tony spoke, the memory of Pepper's father lecturing him for ages last night made the corner of his mouth twitch.

"I imagine that didn't go very smoothly," Luke guessed upon seeing Tony's expression.

"It wasn't easy, but I still succeeded." Tony swore that no one except his dad had ever dared lecture him for that long!

Well, perhaps his mom had to be excluded too?

"All right, enough chatting. I think that one-eyed guy might be getting impatient." Tony urged Luke to finish breakfast, then took him away in the car.

"I think I'll have to move again." Luke felt a little helpless as he looked at the people taking pictures with their phones along the road.

"Look on the bright side. Once these guys post their pictures, they'll attract another huge batch of customers to buy our phones. Who could refuse a phone that can browse the internet, take pictures, show directions, navigate, play music, and more? It can even make calls!"

Tony explained, smiling at the people taking pictures by the roadside and signaling for Luke to cooperate. So Luke smiled along with him.

Later, that picture of Luke and Tony putting on fake smiles blew up online and did indeed draw plenty of people to buy their phones.

After driving for a while, Tony brought Luke to a warehouse on the outskirts.

"Is S.H.I.E.L.D. short on funds? You have to rent office space here?" Tony glanced at the agents on duty, then turned to Luke.

Before Luke could speak, a voice came from inside the warehouse.

"If the famous Iron Man, Tony Stark, is willing to provide me with some funding, I'd be more than happy to accept."

Tony turned to look at the door, which had opened at some point. Beyond it was pitch-black, with only a single eye showing.

"Hahahaha!" Luke clutched his stomach. He hadn't expected Fury to have so little awareness of his own skin color and still pull something like this.

Luke gave him a thumbs-up, making the veins bulge on Fury's forehead. Clearly, though, Tony and Luke still couldn't see them.

"Is it that funny..." Fury asked Tony.

Tony had been expressionless, but when Fury suddenly spoke, he lost it.

"Pfft, hahahaha! Luke, did you see that? His teeth..." Tony couldn't control his expression at all.

Luke and Tony laughed even harder, while Fury's mood was nowhere near as pleasant.

After glaring at the nearby agents, who were gradually catching the laughter too, Fury turned and went inside. He switched on the lights, finally revealing his figure.

Luke and Tony laughed outside for a while longer before walking in, rubbing their aching jaws.

"So what did you want us here for?" Luke asked Fury.

"A plan. I'd like you to take a look." Fury took out two documents and handed them over.

Luke raised an eyebrow at the emblem on the document, then opened it to read the plan.

Tony, on the other hand, complained as he read.

"Avengers? What kind of ridiculous name is that? You have to wait until someone attacks before hitting back? I generally prefer taking out the other side first. What do you think?"

After looking over the provisions and such, Tony was the first to set the document down.

"So you want us to join these Avengers?"

"No." Fury shook his head. "I'm just letting you look at the plan. What do you think?" he asked Tony.

"Uh..." Tony thought for a moment. "It's a pretty good plan. Gather the most suitable members to handle things ordinary people can't handle. I think it's pretty good."

As far as Tony was concerned, handling a whole pile of problems alone-a superhero-like role-suited him perfectly.

"So Luke and I are being invited to join the Avengers?"

"No." Fury shook his head again. "I'm only letting you know about this team. The one who'll actually be joining it is Luke."

Fury looked at Luke, who was still slowly reading the regulations, and waited for his response.

But before Luke could speak, Tony objected.

"Why can Luke join this team, but I can't?"

Fury looked at Tony with his one eye. "Because you're arrogant, have no sense of teamwork, and don't follow orders from superiors. And most importantly, this one-eyed guy doesn't like you!"

Tony said in surprise, "You're spying on Luke?"

"No, I'm spying on you. As for him, he and I have an agreement." Fury reached under Tony's collar and pulled out an inconspicuous black patch.

"Looks like I need a new dry cleaner." Tony shrugged.

Luke was a little bewildered too. Ever since discovering that he was being watched, he usually had plenty of Ninja Soldiers around him checking for covert surveillance and the like, but they had never caught a single agent.

He had genuinely thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was too good for him to detect. It turned out the guy really had stopped spying on him.

"So what do you think of this team?"

Looking at Fury's single eye turned toward him, Luke thought for a moment before finally putting the document on the table.

"Although I think this team is great too, I personally don't want to join."

Luke looked at Fury's unchanged expression. Sure enough, the guy had guessed it. Tony, however, was the most shocked of all.

"Why?"

"Because I don't like being ordered around every day. I don't like having someone else control my actions at all times, and I don't like other people having private information about me and things like that."

Luke explained. After all, he still wanted to be the king of dirt. How could he let others control information about him?

"You don't seem surprised at all?" Tony gave Fury a puzzled look.

"Could you stop acting like such an idiot, Tony? He's the biggest spymaster in the world."

Tony shot Luke a defiant look, but didn't argue any further.

He knew Luke's personality too; he was just still a little shocked.

"Then will you keep working as a security consultant?" Fury asked in a low voice.

Luke thought for a moment. "Sure. Even though I don't have to worry about making ends meet anymore, I still need to do a little work to add some variety to life."

Fury nodded, then turned to Tony. "Would you be willing to start as a..."

"Security consultant? I'd be delighted. After all, I'd also like to fight some vampires or something. That's what suits a superhero."

Tony jumped in before Fury could finish.

"Of course, you can't afford my salary, but I think you could employ me in some other way."

...The next day...

A senator presented Tony, Luke, and Rhodey with medals, wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"This feels really weird," Luke whispered to Tony.

"Relax. Just smile." Tony handed Luke a pair of sunglasses and put on a picture-perfect smile.

And so the shortest of them, the senator, stood at the front, with three faces of different skin colors wearing picture-perfect smiles above his head.

"Perfect!" Luke took his phone from the Ninja Soldier who had been taking pictures below the stage, checked the photo, and was thoroughly satisfied.

Then he uploaded embarrassing pictures of Rhodey, pictures of Tony creating the new element, and pictures of the Ninja Soldiers surrounding and attacking the Mechanical Soldiers and the final boss, Ivan, to his blog, publishing a post titled "Iron Man 2."

He also compiled the earlier pictures and published "Iron Man 1." Looking through the comments, Luke unexpectedly spotted a name.

Stan "Cameo King" "Watcher" Lee

With a smile only he understood, Luke put away his phone. Now that Iron Man 2 was over and Coulson had headed to Mexico, a certain brother-obsessed guy would soon be coming to Earth for a visit.

Taking out the phone he had just put away, Luke searched for recent news about fallen meteorites and the like, and found a story that had received very little attention.

After checking where the meteorite had landed, Luke bought a plane ticket to Mexico.

Meanwhile, a certain unnamed working stiff was driving toward Mexico under the blazing sun, unaware that someone was about to overtake him.

Luke let Tony know, only to discover that the guy had actually taken Pepper on an out-of-town vacation. Pepper had spent an entire day handling business without even having time to be lovey-dovey with him, so in a fit of anger, he had taken her out to play hooky.

That's so you!

Luke nodded and decided to take a spontaneous trip himself. His trip might just take him a tiny billion times farther.

...Asgard...

Holding Odin's Gungnir, Loki came to Heimdall, the guardian of the Bifrost.

"How is my brother doing on Earth?"

Heimdall glanced at Loki with his strangely colored eyes. "Thor is undergoing his trial on Earth."

Loki looked at Heimdall with an unusual gaze. "I thought Father would never let him return, and Asgard had only one prince left."

Heimdall turned his gaze back toward the stars. "Thor will not stop on Earth." As though he had seen something, Heimdall shook his head.

A mere woman thinks she can shake the eldest prince's steadfast (straight-man) heart and resolute (steel-like) will.

Seeing how little regard Heimdall had for him put Loki in an awful mood.

"Tell me, Heimdall. You have eyes that can see through the Nine Realms, and you possess great power. Would my father fear you, then?"

Heimdall withdrew his gaze and looked at Loki. "No, because the king understands that I will be loyal to my king!"

Loki swung Gungnir, and a powerful surge of energy erupted across the Bifrost.

"But now I am king!"

Heimdall looked at Loki, his expression unchanged.

"You are merely the acting king. When King Odin ends Odin's Sleep, you will become a prince again."

Loki was furious, but even with Gungnir in hand, he did not dare attack this powerful god. He could only leave in anger.

Heimdall tightened his grip on his divine sword as he watched Loki leave.

"Odin knows I will not betray him. He never hides his actions, and I never pry into them. But you..."

Heimdall withdrew his gaze. "I have never been able to see you clearly."

Heimdall continued watching Thor. If anything happened to Thor, he would activate the Bifrost and grind that enemy to ashes!

For the warlike, fierce people of Asgard, the eldest prince, Thor, better matched their expectations of a king, while the second prince, who was always secretly casting spells, had only one supporter...