Thor takes a good look at Loki once he has hauled him back onto the quinjet, and realizes that there is something odd about Loki's eyes. Thor has grown and changed much in the last year, and no longer takes anything for granted. So he starts asking questions. It doesn't take long to figure out that Loki is not acting of his own free will. Tony Stark knows what it is to be forced to do as an enemy commands. Steve Rogers has seen the atrocities manipulative madmen are willing to commit. Clint, Logan, Bruce and Natasha have been subjected to said madmen. They all know what it is to lose themselves, and to seek redemption. Together, this band of broken heroes draws a line in the sand. They will not tolerate any tyrant, foreign or domestic. That includes Nick Fury and the WSC, who have used everyone on the team for their own aims. It includes Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, who has hunted Bruce against all reason. It includes Odin, who treats his sons like commodities. And it includes Thanos, who has delusions of conquering Earth. Along the way, they learn to trust each other. They learn to help each other. They become a family.

Cullen isn't as slow to catch on as everyone thinks. He's just slow to act on it.

In a world where Zoro isn't even a person any more can he ever be free or manage to do anything more than just survive? He should have known that he'd be bought eventually but this... isn't what he'd expected. Zosan, updated weekly. All comments, thoughts and wild-mass-guessings welcome!

How many times can you kill a man before you ultimately change who he is? How many times can you kill a man, before he ultimately changes who you are? ~*~ Obi-Wan, desperate to see his mission through and knowing he's dying already, sells himself to a vengeful mandalorian if only he'll finish the job in Obi-Wan's stead. That goes about as well as you would expect. (It doesn't.)

Fox was no stranger to being used as a subject for Palpatine's experiments and Sith rituals. But when Palpatine decided to test out a mysterious artifact on Fox, the results were beyond what anyone could have anticipated.

After Neil runs his mouth on Kathy Ferdinand's show, he strikes a bargain with Andrew and finds out there's more to the monster than he originally thought.