Thor wouldn't let anyone take the gauntlet from him. He didn't trust that anyone bar himself would bring Loki back along with everyone else.

The trouble lay in where he could stop bringing people back to life. He could bring back Asgard, sure, but if he brought it back, why not every other group of people that had been killed? Why not Zen-Whoberi or the citizens killed in the New York invasion and Sokovia? Where would he stop?

No. He had to limit himself to only resurrecting those who had been killed in Thanos' recent search for the stones. Even if it was hard to do.

He thought back to his trip to Xandar when he was travelling the universe in search of the infinity stones. They were good people and though Thor didn't agree that they should keep the power stone, he let them have it. In hindsight, that was a mistake, but with the infinity gauntlet in hand, he could bring them back. The soul stone told him all those who had died and the time stone reversed their deaths. It was almost too easy.

Next was the Asgardians who had been killed from the search for the Tesseract. Thor remembered standing before them as their king, with Loki, Brunnhilde, Heimdall, Korg and Bruce by his side. He remembered the pride he felt in his people and urged the ship to repair itself and his people to return from the dead.

He had gone to the collector in his travels too. His security was better than most, but evidently not enough to stop a Titan with two infinity stones. He had the same – rather creepy – aura that the grandmaster did, but he did have rather good wine. Thor brought him back along with any of the living beings that had been in his collection when Thanos destroyed the place. And maybe he didn't put those living beings back in their cages when he resurrected them, but he would plead the fifth if asked about it.

He brought back those who died in the battle for the time stone next. The soul stone assisted him in bringing back everyone. The Wakandan Army, the Dora Milaje, and the Jubari tribe. The Asgardians and the Sakaraan Gladiators. The Guardians and The Avengers and The Defenders. Spider-man and Doctor Strange. He pictured them lined up for battle and resurrected them all.

And then, Thor used the soul and time stones to reverse the halving of Earth and anyone else who died accidentally because of it.

Gamora was next. Thor remembered seeing her for the first time, radiating the same intimidating aura as Sif always did. He didn't know her well, but already respected her as a great warrior and as someone able to break free from the manipulation Thanos used to keep her under his control.

The soul stone disappeared as he brought her back to life, but Thor didn't need it anymore. He could remember who the last soul was on his own. His last memory of Loki wasn't a pleasant one. He tried to think of a nicer time in Loki's life when as he brought his brother back. The first memory that came to mind was the two of them as young children after Loki had turned Eir's hair blue per Thor's suggestion and the two of them had ran away giggling. They had later gotten caught, of course, but the memory had still stuck to his mind. Back then Loki was still happy and the two of them were still close. Thor hoped when Loki returned, they could work together to return to something like that.

Some of the recently resurrected had turned up in some odd places.

Gamora called the Guardians' ship radio from her mobile one (which the other Guardians claimed had been lost in the battle on Knowhere for the reality stone) to say she was in some desert planet. They quickly traced her signal back to the Australian outback.

The Statesman was found rather quickly when it showed up beside a Norwegian village. Heimdall and Sif soon left to check up on the them when Thor insisted he had to stay.

The Collector made quite a bit of noise in England and when Tony found him on the news, Thor told him to contact the Guardians – who promised to drop him off to Knowhere when they returned to space.

Everyone else seemed fine – if a little confused and amnestic – and in the right place.

All except Loki.

Thor waited for him to contact them somehow. If he was left somewhere isolated like Gamora, it could take him a while.

He couldn't use the gauntlet to find him either, he'd let Strange take it without thinking and now all the stones were locked away in five separate lockets. Thor had gotten one of them, but had no idea which one. According to Strange, they wouldn't be able to unlock the lockets unless they were all in the same room and each consented to using their personal stone. It would prevent anyone being killed for the stones and prevent the stones being used aside from in an emergency situation. They could pass the stone's ownership onto someone else, but only if they believed that person could responsibly take care of the stone, so there was no way to pass on the ownership with torture techniques.

It was all rather clever, but meant Thor couldn't use the stones to find Loki. No doubt if he asked, the other owners of the stones would think that 'finding Loki' was definitely a non-emergency, especially as he was probably hiding on purpose to avoid getting in trouble.

Strange had spoken to the Guardians before they left and as a group they decided to give the ownership of a stone to both Nebula and Gamora. Strange was a little annoyed, but agreed that it could be owned by two people eventually.

Another stone was given to Wakanda, or rather, to T'Challa, as Strange wasn't keen on giving the stone to every person in the country.

Strange had kept one for himself, of course, and gave the last one to Steve. Stark grumbled that he wasn't given a stone half-heartedly, but it was obviously in good humour.

He still trained with Valkyrie and Hulk everyday, and talked with Bruce (or Jane over skype sometimes) about science. With Bruce's seven PhDs and Thor's thousand years of experience, they had a lot of areas they could cover.

Still, he wished Loki would get a move on and contact them already. Or even make a surprise visit to Wakanda and stab him or something. Every green animal Thor saw, he got his hopes up and was eventually disappointed.

Everyone was concerned about him, he knew they were. They had a right to be, he was in a sort of slump waiting for Loki. Every other time he had 'died', Thor was able to grieve and move on, but now he was just waiting. Everyone else had been brought back, surely Loki had been too?

"Maybe he's not coming back." Valkyrie said bluntly one evening.

"It's not healthy to dwell on this." Bruce told him with concern.

"I cannot see further than Norway and Sweden. Asgard's destruction continues to weaken my sight," Heimdall said reluctantly when asked if he could see where Loki was.

Thor tried to believe that he was hiding or unable to make contact, but he was losing hope every day that passed. Eventually he was convinced by Sif to leave Wakanda and visit his people in Norway. Bruce and Brunnhilde followed him there.

He enjoyed himself a little more, Loki still hanging heavy on his mind, but responsibility was a more pressing matter.

Months passed. Smaller Avengers missions and royal emergencies passed by too and Loki being dead seemed to be a fact accepted by everyone other than him. It didn't bother him as much as it used to, but he still held out a little hope. He didn't waste hours waiting for Loki to reappear anymore though, and when the Guardians stopped by and asked if Thor wanted to join them for a month or two (Groot missed him – they said), he agreed without a second thought.

Around the same time in New York, a young child with raven black hair smiles at a gathered crowd, green eyes glinting, as he cons them out of their money. None of them aware that this child is anything but innocent, or is in fact the God of Mischief and Stories themselves. The trickster god Loki lives, but no one has any idea that this child is them.

Elsewhere, a pale hand bursts free from the Ocean of Immortality, fingernails stained black from its tar-like water. Amora the Enchantress pulls herself to shore and curses at Odin with the first words she had spoken in hundreds of years.

On a Skrull ship farther away in space, Carol Danvers gets a message on her beeper, arriving months after Fury intended her to get it. Punching the last Skrull unconscious, she begins making plans to head back to Earth for the first time in a long time.

The End! Of this book at least. Sorry for abandoning this thing when it had only chapter left for so long, but the first chapter of the next book is nearly ready to publish. I'll post a new chapter here when I've published the second book so you all know it's out.
Thank you so much for reading this! All your kind words mean so much to me!

SYNOPSIS OF 'SPIDEY'S BABYSITTING SERVICE', THE SEQUEL TO GODDESS OF STORIES:

'The Sokovokia accords are being used to throw vigilantes in the Raft indefinitely and Peter's one of the subcommittee's targets. As he takes a further look into the regulations of the accords, Peter discovers that some of the stuff is a little too extreme for the 'oversight' the UN promised when writing it.

As Peter discovers why the UN are breaking their own human right laws, he also has to deal with a kid Loki that doesn't know he's Loki and an angry Enchantress terrorising the city.

Though it sounds like a political triller, it'll probably just be a bunch of dorks being dumb and goofing around.'