Winky stood there with a pleasant, polite smile, but her sudden appearance shocked absolutely everyone. Not only because they didn’t recognize her as the unremarkable, quiet woman who helped Arthur look after the Hayes household, but because of what she did next.

As Loki stared in utter disbelief at the silver barrier absorbing his ultimate attack, Winky casually reached her other hand through the shimmering magic.

With a swift, precise motion, she snatched the Scepter right out of Loki’s grip.

The catastrophic gravity well died instantly.

Loki looked at his empty palm.

He looked at the towering silver elf.

He looked back at his empty palm in pure disbelief.

"Hello, sir," Winky said politely, her voice echoing with a strange, harmonic resonance. "This is a very dangerous weapon. Winky will hold it for you."

Loki’s eye twitched.

It was a very small motion. Almost undetectable. The kind of muscular flinch that suggests a man is currently performing complex mental calculations about how dignified it is possible to remain when one’s apocalyptic plan has just been confiscated by an unknown stranger. Barton had not mentioned this creature in any of his intelligence briefings.

"Give it back," Loki commanded.

"Winky will," she said pleasantly. "In a moment. When your anger goes away. Winky does not want you to hurt yourself in this angry state."

Loki extended his hand. A violent pulse of green magic snapped out toward the Scepter, intending to rip it back to his grip by force.

The Scepter did not move. Winky’s silver magic held it firmly in place.

Winky tilted her head and made a small tutting noise, exactly like a disappointed governess catching a child throwing a tantrum.

"You must not do that. That is very bad manners."

Loki stared at her, genuinely and profoundly baffled.

"What," he asked carefully, "are you."

"Winky," said Winky.

"Yes, but..."

"Hayes family’s nanny," Winky added helpfully.

"HAYES!" The name exploded out of Loki’s mouth in pure, unadulterated fury. Arthur Hayes had made a complete fool of him far too many times. Now, the wizard’s family nanny was casually doing the exact same thing.

Loki lunged forward to grab Winky.

But Winky simply popped out of existence, taking the Scepter with her, and reappeared ten meters away with a soft crack.

Loki lunged again, moving with godlike speed.

Winky popped away again.

She popped lightly onto the roof of the hovering Quinjet. Then she popped back down beside Tony. Then she popped next to Natasha, offering the deadly spy a polite little nod of greeting, before finally reappearing exactly in her original position in the center of the runway.

She held the glowing Scepter out at arm’s length, holding it exactly as though it were a small, highly unpleasant, and unwashed animal. She waited patiently for Loki to catch up.

By the fifth teleport, Tony was openly laughing inside the Mark X. Even Steve, despite his bruises and the blood on his face, was fighting a smile. Hulk was standing near the wreckage with his massive green arms crossed, watching the arrogant god chase the silver elf with the highly amused expression of a man who had just been handed the best seat in the house.

Loki stopped running. He stood very still in the middle of the deck. His breathing was heavy. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, the blinding rage was gone, replaced by pure, cold, calculating focus.

He raised his hands, and the air around Winky exploded into a cage of volatile green runes. He was no longer trying to grab the Scepter; he was trying to trap her. He had predicted her teleportation angles, filling the surrounding space with magical tripwires designed to detonate the moment she displaced herself.

Winky fought back. She raised her free hand, and raw, overwhelming silver power erupted outward. Arthur had been feeding her magical core for years, and in this combat form, she possessed a brute strength that rivaled the greatest sorcerers. She shattered Loki’s runes with concentrated blasts of pure energy, shielding herself effortlessly from the resulting explosions.

Using the flash of the detonating runes as cover, Loki materialized directly in front of her.

He threw a devastating punch. But Winky vanished a half-second before the blow landed, Loki’s fist crunching uselessly into the deck plating. She reappeared directly behind him and, with a small apologetic noise, swatted him between the shoulder blades with a pulse of silver light.

The pulse sent Loki flying face-first into a pile of smoking wreckage.

Loki quickly got up. He was angrier than ever.

"Oh, you really should not have gotten up," Winky said, sounding genuinely apologetic about the situation.

Winky looked to be having a massive advantage, but Loki was a millennium-old tactical genius. He had realized by now that while the silver creature possessed terrifying raw magical power, she lacked actual, brutal combat experience. She fought exactly like someone figuring out their powers in real time, not like a warrior trying to win a duel to the death.

He changed tactics. Loki spun and fired a massive, searing blast of green fire directly at the group of SHIELD agents near the tower door.

Winky gasped. She teleported instantly to intercept the attack, throwing up a massive, sweeping silver shield to protect Fury and Coulson.

It was a feint.

The green fire dissolved into harmless mist right before it hit her shield. Loki materialized directly behind her. He didn’t use magic this time. He simply reached out, grabbed her wrist with his superhuman Asgardian strength, and twisted hard.

Winky cried out and dropped the Scepter.

Loki snatched it out of the air, delivering a brutal kick that sent the elf sliding backward across the metal deck.

He held the Scepter high, his eyes burning with absolute malice. He was humiliated. He was furious. He was entirely done playing games with mortals and their bizarre pets.

"You will all burn!" Loki screamed.

He drove the Scepter toward the metal deck once more. The blue gem shrieked. A catastrophic wave of cosmic energy began to gather, expanding outward to vaporize the entire Helicarrier and everyone standing on it.

Winky scrambled to her feet. Her silver eyes blazed. She spread her arms wide, preparing to cast a massive containment shield to protect her Master’s friends, or, if necessary, teleport everyone on the deck to safety at once.

Before either of them could unleash their power, the dark clouds above the Helicarrier tore open.

Lightning struck the dead center of the runway with a deafening, world-shaking boom. The concussive force of the strike knocked Loki backward, disrupting his spell entirely and throwing the Scepter out of alignment.

The smoke cleared, revealing a tall, armored figure kneeling on the scorched metal. He slowly stood up, holding a sparking hammer in his right hand. A red cape whipped wildly in the storm winds.

Thor looked around the ruined deck, his eyes locking instantly onto his brother. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Brother," Thor said quietly, his voice carrying over the wind. "What have you done?"

Loki looked at Thor. He looked at Winky, whose hands were still glowing with silver fire. He looked at the Hulk climbing out of the rubble, at the SHIELD agents raising their weapons, at the Captain bracing his shield, and at the man in the metal suit powering up his repulsors. Everyone was getting up for a final, bloody battle.

He did the math.

Arthur Hayes was absent. That intelligence was confirmed and absolute. It had been worth every second of this charade. But the window for absolute destruction was closed. Thor, plus the powerful silver creature, plus a team of mortals that stubbornly refused to die, was a fight he could not definitively win today.

And the Chitauri fleet was coming. He needed to be ready for the real war.

"Another time, brother," Loki said softly, raising the Scepter.

He vanished entirely in a blinding flash of green and blue cosmic light.

Thor lowered Mjolnir in the heavy silence that followed. He turned slowly to the towering, silver-skinned figure standing amidst the wreckage.

"Winky," Thor said respectfully, offering a slight bow. "It is very good that you arrived to stop my brother from doing something that he would deeply regret."

Winky shifted back. The brilliant silver receded completely into her skin. She shrank slightly, shifting back into the unassuming, ordinary human disguise that quietly followed Arthur’s kids around the parks in New York.

"Winky promised to keep Master’s friends safe," she said simply, smoothing out the front of her tidy dress. "Winky always keeps her promises."