Thor asked about Ethan's life on Midgard. He was direct about the question because he was direct about everything.
Ethan told him what he could, sticking to the alien-father story. Thor took it at face value, since he never looked for hidden meanings. Ethan explained how he arrived with little and built a life from there. Thor was truly interested, not just pretending to listen, but actually thinking about what Ethan said.
"You built a household," Thor said. He said it like a fact he was confirming rather than a compliment he was offering, but the register behind it was warm.
"I did," Ethan confirmed.
Thor looked at the grounds — the greenhouse, the treeline, Indominus visible at the far edge, going about his morning territory assessment.
"It is a good household," Thor said. "I have been in many. This is good."
That was his whole review. Thor didn't add anything extra or try to make it sound better. He meant every word, and that was enough.
---
Loki did not help with the lawn.
He spent the first two days of the week on the edges of different rooms, watching and adding to the picture he'd been building since they arrived. By the third day, he shifted from being focused on taking everything in to just being there, which was how Loki got comfortable in a new place.
He had conversations with Jean that were the week's most substantive exchanges.
Jean's telepathy made it hard for anyone to put on an act around her, and Loki usually relied on performance in social situations. She wasn't trying to read his mind—her awareness was sharp enough to know what was on the surface and what was deeper without needing to pry, and she didn't pry. She was just accurate. This made Loki's usual act feel unnecessary in a way most people couldn't manage.
They sat in the library one afternoon, Loki in the chair Ethan usually occupied and Jean at her preferred window end with the book she was not currently reading.
"You know more about this world than your explanation of your father covers," Loki said. He was not accusing. He was observing.
Jean looked at him over the top of the book.
"How did you arrive at that?" she asked.
"The way he speaks about things he knows — there is no hesitation where hesitation would exist in someone who received knowledge secondhand. He knows things the way a person who was there knows things." Loki held her gaze. "I am familiar with the architecture of concealment. It takes one to recognize one."
Jean set the book down.
"Are you asking me to confirm something?" she said.
"I'm observing," Loki said. "Whether you do anything with the observation is entirely your business."
She looked at him for a moment, taking in what she could without pushing for more.
"He is who he is," she said. "That is what I can offer you."
"That," Loki said, "is precisely the kind of answer I would give." He looked at the shelving. "Which means it is both completely true and completely insufficient."
"Then we understand each other," Jean said.
They did. The conversation continued in other directions, and the library held it all without requiring anyone to go further than they were willing to go.
---
Thori moved near Loki in the evenings.
He didn't make a big show of it or look for attention. Thori just moved closer to where Loki was in the room and stayed nearby, as they had always done. Neither of them made a point of it. In the evenings, Loki read, thought, or talked with whoever was around if he felt like it. Thori was always there.
At one point, in the quieter end of the week, Loki reached down and put his hand briefly on Thori's head.
Thori accepted this with the complete equanimity of a creature for whom touch was information rather than theater.
No one in the room said anything about it. Some people noticed, but they chose to stay quiet, which was the right thing to do.
---
The guardian lion spent the week establishing the full extent of her territory, which turned out to be the full extent of the actual property.
This wasn't surprising. Guardian lions were made to protect, and that meant knowing every detail of what they were guarding. She checked every fence, every building edge, and every corner of the eastern forest on the property. She kept coming back to Raven—not for instructions, but to check in, the way animals return to the person they trust.
Thor encountered her on the second day.
He was out on the grounds when she came around the greenhouse and saw him. They both noticed each other and took each other in. Thor looked at her with the simple respect of someone who could recognize power right away.
"She is small," he said to Ethan, who was nearby.
"She is young," Ethan said. "And she has a blessing from Shou-Lao the Undying."
Thor looked at the lion with increased interest. "The great dragon of Kun-Lun?"
"The same."
Thor looked at the guardian lion again, this time with the distinct impression that someone was recalibrating what they were looking at.
"She will be formidable," he said. He wasn't making a guess about the future; he was noticing what was already there, even if she was still small. He said it as directly as he said everything, and the guardian lion met his gaze calmly, not bothered by his judgment.
He asked about Indominus next. Ethan explained — the Savage Land, the rescue, Raven's sanctuary concept, the greenhouse, the grounds, and the long-term plan for the eastern forest as Indominus grew into requiring it. Thor received this with the expression he wore when he encountered something he found genuinely excellent.
"She takes in animals that have nowhere else to go," he said about Raven. He wasn't asking; he was just summing up what he'd heard and looking for confirmation.
"That is what she is building," Ethan said.
"This is good," Thor said, with the straightforward certainty of someone who knew right from wrong without hesitation. "This is the right thing to do."
---
The sparring happened on the fourth day.
Rogue brought it up, which was how it should be. She had watched Thor all week, sizing him up the way she did with anyone she thought might be a good sparring partner, and she'd made up her mind. She asked him straight out.
Thor's face did the thing it did when offered a fight — not the full delighted expression he had produced at the sight of Ethan, but the warm, genuinely pleased expression of someone who had been hoping for this.
They found an open section of the restored grounds and went at it.
Thor didn't go all out. He wasn't going to use his full strength on anyone but Ethan, and he adjusted his power to make the fight tough but not overwhelming—a skill he'd learned from centuries of fighting people with different abilities. Even so, it was hard. Rogue kept up.
The Apocalypse-derived strength and physical capability she carried was the foundation, and she had been training with it for months — not just having it, developing it into something she directed rather than simply possessed. Thor registered this. He pushed her harder. She adapted. The exchange ran for fifteen minutes, and at the end of it, Thor was looking at her with the particular expression of someone who had been impressed.
"You absorb powers from others," he said.
"I do," she said, and left it at that. Rogue didn't add more when she felt she'd said enough.
"And the one you carry here—" he gestured at the general capability she had been demonstrating "—was the first."
"The first mutant," she said. "En Sabah Nur."
Thor took this in.
"That is a significant inheritance," he said.
"I'm aware," she said.
He looked at her for another moment, using the specific assessment he reserved for people he intended to take seriously.
"You are good," he said. "That's not a compliment. It's just the truth."
Rogue looked at him.
"I know," she said.
He found this deeply satisfying.
---
Amora and Raven's sessions ran every morning.
The knowledge sharing was genuine. Asgardian sorcery's way of handling transformation magic was based on different ideas than the Ancient One's tradition, and the differences were helpful, not conflicting. Amora knew things the Ancient One's books didn't mention—not because the books were lacking, but because they approached the same subject from another direction.
Raven improved. The material-composition exercises that used to last only eight seconds began lasting longer. This happened because she changed her approach—not asking the material to become something else, but understanding what it was already turning into. That was Amora's idea, and it really helped.
Raven stayed aware of who she was learning from and what Amora wanted. She was careful about what she accepted and what she kept to herself. She wasn't naive about people being generous for their own reasons, and she didn't pretend otherwise. Amora actually found Raven's carefulness more interesting than if she'd just accepted everything. Raven didn't fake gratitude or take more than she needed, which Amora rarely saw.
Amora thought the sessions were valuable for their own sake, which made things a bit more complicated for her. She was used to being generous only for a reason. This time, it was mostly for her own goals, but also a little bit genuine, which was new for her.
---
On the sixth day, Loki told Thor it was time.
He said it the way he always did when he spoke the truth he'd been thinking about—directly, without any buildup, in a quiet moment they found in the east sitting room after everyone else had left.
"We have duties," Loki said.
Thor was quiet for a moment. He didn't resist—he understood duty right away, just like he understood most things. He just needed a moment to shift from enjoying a good week in a household he liked to thinking about what came next.
"Tomorrow," Thor said.
They told Ethan the next morning. Thor was straightforward: he said it had been great, they could have a rematch whenever it worked, and he was glad they'd visited. He said each thing clearly and simply, the way he always did when he meant it.
Loki didn't say much. He told Ethan the hospitality was genuine, which meant a lot coming from him, and he didn't try to make it sound bigger than it was. Then he went to find Thori before the portal opened.
Thori came to him and sat.
"Visit," Thori said.
"I will think about it," Loki said.
They both knew this meant Loki would visit. It was the most honest answer, and Thori liked honest answers.
Loki looked at him for a moment—the hellhound he had named, who had come to Midgard on a witch's orders and found a home among others who had nowhere else to go. Thori fit in as if he'd been searching for this place all along, even if he hadn't known it.
He was glad, and he didn't try to hide it or put on a show. He let the feeling show on his face for a moment, then pulled himself together and went to find Thor.
---
Loki opened the portal.
Thor went through first, as decisively as he did everything. At the doorway, he turned and looked at everyone gathered outside—Ethan, Raven, Jean, Rogue, Ilyana, Thori, the guardian lion next to Raven, and Indominus at the edge of the property. He looked at them all with the contented look of someone who had found a place worth coming back to.
He didn't say anything fancy. He just raised Mjolnir for a moment—a sign of respect—and stepped through.
Loki looked at Amora before he followed.
The exchange took only three seconds, but said everything. He knew why she was staying, and she knew he knew. They didn't need to talk about it. He looked at her with full understanding, having watched her long enough to know her motives. She met his gaze calmly, not pretending with someone who already saw through her.
Then Loki went through, and the portal closed.
Amora turned back to the house.
---
Ethan watched the portal close and then looked at her.
She stood in his yard with the quiet confidence of someone who had decided, without saying so, that she lived there now. She wasn't pushy or asking for anything. She was just there, acting on her decision.
He thought about it privately.
She was an Asgardian sorceress. He knew she had two reasons for being here—one was Thor, who had just left, and the other had to do with him, which he'd noticed in the way she acted around him all week. He wasn't naive about her motives, but he wasn't bothered by them either. She had spent the week being truly helpful, especially to Raven, and her help was real, not just for show.
His household had grown again.
He looked at the grounds: the guardian lion at Raven's side, Indominus in the distance, Thori moving toward the house. He looked at the house: his three girlfriends visible through the main room windows, Ilyana somewhere inside, Amora now standing in the grounds between him and all of it.
He had not planned for an Asgardian sorceress.
He hadn't planned for most of what he had now. A hellhound, a guardian lion, a young T. rex with an Iron Fist-blessed friend, a clone of one of his girlfriends out finding her own way, forty-three Sinister bases cleared in one night, two weeks of real sunlight, and powers that still hadn't reached their limit.
Not planning things had become the pattern.
He decided he was okay with that.
"You're staying," he said to Amora. He wasn't asking; he was just stating what was obvious.
Amora looked at him with the composed assurance of someone who had already decided and was not going to reverse the decision.
"For a while," she said.
He looked at her for a moment and then looked back at the house.
"There's a guest room on the east wing," he said. "It's available."
He went inside.
She followed him inside, and the household welcomed her just as it had welcomed everything else that showed up—fully and without any fuss, because that's simply how this household worked.