I was pacing now, the energy was tight in my chest. Stuck in this room with two gods and their equal, a man who if he left this room might bend time to make course of events more likely than one in a million into the truth. And here, in this room, I was just a man with ambitions. "Loki is the breaking point for the United States and they have veto power."

"You have more influence than anyone else on this planet," Loki said, standing next to Thor. "I know you're friends with Malick, he's the one with the veto."

Strange looked from Loki to me, "How do you know he's the most influential man on the planet?" Strange asked. Strange had taken the news that I was the most influential man on the planet in remarkable stride, which made me wonder what he knew – What the Ancient One had told him, what he had discovered for himself. More thickets and I was spending half my concentration staying calm about being unable to kill Loki.

"Heimdall," Thor said, holding his brother's shoulder to tell him not to speak. "He is able to see across worlds. A valiant watchman, my brother set him to watching Michael Trent."

"At any rate," I said, cutting off the exposition before it got to be too much. "I don't have the power to make Malick throw himself on his sword like that." In theory, I did but it wouldn't matter – The U.S. vote would've been in the hands of the President himself and Ellis, at least, had reason to show strength against Loki in this matter. All of the investment into SWORD and the free reign he had given to SHIELD, that had all been because of Loki.

Loki raised an eyebrow of doubt in my direction. "If the U.S. won't permit it, I will be kept off of Earth."

"Why not go to any of the other nine worlds?" I asked, rubbing my temple.

"Michael Trent, I am aware of my weaknesses," Thor said. "I need a magician beside me, a politician. Someone I can trust."

"And you picked the god of trickery?" Strange said, saying what I was thinking before me.

"Thank you," I said, throwing my hands in the air.

"I know my brother's… reputation, but he acted under duress," Thor said, wrapping his arm around his brother in a defensive shield. "And he has won back his honor through danger and sacrifice and wisdom. I will not permit him to be exiled from Asgard."

The room was silent for a minute. We brooded over each other, thinking, puzzling our way through. I was the one to break the silence with my theory, "Does your brother need to be totally free? Could you put him in a cell?"

Loki rolled his eyes but Thor looked thoughtful, which I took to be a good sign.

"A cell is better than walking free," I said, slowing to a stop and thinking it over. "But that's not going to be enough – Loki fought for the forces that invaded the U.S. Capital, even if they accept this under-duress story, they're going to want some strong signs of good faith."

Strange raised a finger in his chair, "Can Heimdall see… anywhere?"

"There are forms of magic which can block his sight," Loki said. He shrugged helplessly, "I invented half of them."

I was mostly interested in where Strange was going with this, "Okay, but could he see Thanos?"

"Potentially," Loki said, after his brother gave him a raised eyebrow. Yeah, Thor clearly lacked some of the necessary expertise for kingship if this was the depth of his knowledge of Heimdall's capabilities. "It's also possible that he knows similar cloaking techniques."

"Pity," Strange said, folding his hands together. "I figured that offering to helping get Thanos' head would be a good way of showing good faith."

That silenced the rest of us for a moment. It was… an interesting thought. Attacking Thanos… It hadn't occurred to me. It had never been even a possibility, the idea of killing him proactively was too much. But Thor had his ax now and the space stone, Strange still had the time stone, the mind stone was in a controllable magic item, even if I wasn't going to be the one wearing it. "You think that we can attack Thanos?"

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"He's still mortal," Strange said, "And both the sling rings and the quantum tunnelers don't have range limits. Neither does the Bifrost or, I expect, the Space Stone If we're going to fight him, why fight him on Earth?"

I don't know how Strange knew the Quantum Tunnelers didn't have a limited range, that was classified military intelligence, though I suppose it was the sort of thing that anyone who made a regular traffic through time might have learned. It wasn't a top level secret like Hydra's existence. But I had to count it against the possibility that Strange didn't know that I was the head of the most powerful criminal conspiracy in world history.

"It's an intriguing possibility," I said finally. It was an intriguing possibility. "Does Asgard know where the other Infinity Stones are?"

"Well, the Aether Stone is with the collector and the Power Stone is on Xandar," Loki said instantly. Thor gave him a look of suspicion, "When I found out I had died defending one, I was suddenly much more interested in the disposition of these shiny little rocks."

"Well thought, brother," Thor said, clapping him on the back proudly.

So Thanos presently had no Infinity Stones at all. I mean honestly, that was just kind of embarrassing for him. I had spent the past seven years of my life obsessively preparing for this man's arrival and he hadn't gotten one single stone? I had wrecked so much… for a man who hadn't made a serious attempt to obtain his goal in the last five? It was just frustrating, for me personally.

"So if we find Thanos and kill him now, he'll be down… several Infinity Stones on us."

Loki and Thor nodded their heads in unison and I looked at Strange, "Can you still do that timeline projection thing?"

"Messing with a fundamental force of the universe is not something for the every day." Strange said, his voice annoyed.

"Killing someone who engaged in more genocide than has ever been committed upon the Earth is not every day."

"My predecessor made regular use of many powers that were best held in reserve," Strange said, keeping his voice even from his chair. "Many of the Masters of the Mystic Arts are struggling in the faith in light of this news. And if you knew how dangerous it is for a sorcerer to go sour, you wouldn't take that so lightly. But… if it came to it, I would be willing to check… a few hour of loop. No more than that."

I tilted my head back and forth, "That wouldn't be the worst thing. I think we could work with it." I thought about the idea of attacking Thanos. It seemed to me that we could sell Earth on a better vengeance. It wasn't necessarily an ideal plan, but worst come to worst we'd just get attacked in the next year most likely anyway, so as long as I could get that much of a leash we were golden. "I think I might be able to convince the United States to go along with this."

"But all of this is irrelevant if Thanos is invisible," Strange pointed out.

I shook my head, "No, it isn't – Because I know who his favorite daughter is and if Heimdall can find her, I think she can find him."

"His own daughter would hand him over to us?" Loki asked, surprised.

"It'd be her favorite thing," I said. Man, now that I was thinking about it I almost felt like I had over prepared for Thanos. But still, better to over prepare than to under prepare.

Strange nodded his head, "So do we have your aid, Asgard?"

Thor grinned and laughed, "We would have done it for free."

Soon, Stephen had opened a portal back to the grass of the United Nations Headquarter and taken the two gods through it and I had called Tina to come to the HQ so she could affirm I was free of mind control.