"... That is really the sort of thing that ought to have been mentioned. We need to get out of here—every second we spend we're wasting nine—"

"Is Banner there?"

"Yeah, I'll put you through to the lab."

"Hey, Tony. I've been running a scan for anomalous gamma sources. There are two major ones on Earth: one on the floor of the North Sea, the other inside an extinct volcano in Sokovia."

"Okay neither of those sound easy to get to but the bottom of the ocean sounds better than entombed in solid rock."

"Wait."

No one knows how Olórin got there or how long he's been listening, but he's standing at the door.

"Unless I be mistaken, this Silmaril is not entombed in solid rock." Then he added wistfully: "To think that I held it in my hand—and did not know—but of course—"

"What do you mean?"

"I believe that this mountain of which you speak is the same which was long ago called the Lonely Mountain, Erebor in the Elven-tongue. Once a great kingdom of Dwarves dwelt within, and there they found a jewel which they treasured above all the other riches of the Earth. I did not know, when I dealt with it long ago, that it was the Silmaril that Maedhros son of Fëanor threw into a chasm in his despair, which must have passed through the fires of the Earth to be disgorged when Erebor was formed.

"The jewel was interred with their king, Thorin II, called Oakenshield. I do not know what of the ancient passages through the mountain have been lost to the shifting of the Earth, but I doubt that none remain. It is probably still possible to retrieve the stone."

"Alright, in that case I want to grab both of them. I can get the ocean one myself as soon as I can arrange transport back to Earth. Cap, I'll leave the rest of the team assignments to you."

"I am not likely to be popular in Sokovia so I'll head back to Wakanda and see where we can get on the cloning front. Nat, Bruce, and Thor can go to Sokovia. Send the kid home. Strange can do what he wants."

Strange looks up from where he's working with Celebrimbor.

"We don't expect to be done with the new Sling Ring for a while longer. I'm staying here."

"I'm also sending one of my own people with you. The Oath was foolish but the Silmarils are still my family's property, and I don't want them ending up in some mortal research facility."

"Do you have any people who have ever been to Earth?"

"Most of them."

"Within the last five thousand years."

"Two. Unfortunately Thanos took one and the one that remains is..." He sighs. "Well, let me go talk to him."

He goes up to the second floor of the lab.

There's an elf sitting in the middle of the floor, curled into a ball with his face between his knees.

"Calanáro."

He looks up.

"What."

"I think I've found a way that you can help."

He leaps to his feet in a single angry bound.

"Oh really! I can help? We could have helped before he got all the fucking Infinity Stones, now they're gone—"

He crumples back to the ground and starts crying again.

"I'm sorry. But they're not gone forever, no more than any of our people would be; you know this."

"Are you sure about that? He killed the fucking Valar, Tyelpe—I mean, Lord Curufinwë, Heir of Fëanor, O mighty among the Eldar in craft and lore, and so forth." (Celebrimbor hates both titles and his father-name and Calanáro knows it.) "They're not in Mandos, why would any of us receive a kinder fate?"

"They are in Mandos; two of our mortal guests are Thanos' victims who have returned from there.

"And I am not your lord. But I wield authority in this city as I must, and I thought that I could not in good conscience allow you to risk being parted from your newborn child. This has been our law since the days of Beleriand. But now the parting has been made regardless, and I see that I was wrong.

"The Men who oppose Thanos are going to try to retrieve a Silmaril to use against him." (The part about resurrecting Fëanor seems vaguely like classified information.) "I need you to keep an eye on them—make sure the jewel ends up here when all is said and done, and not in some mortal research lab."

"I would do anything at all toward the cause of having Thanos strung up in the Void by his ankles for Morgoth to use as a punching bag. Babysitting your family's stupid shiny rocks does not seem to fall into that category."

"If Thanos is going to be killed with a Silmaril, wouldn't you like to be the one who does it? And then bring it back here—I mean, where else would you go with it?"