They had just wrapped up a minor criminal and his robot army hiding out in an old warehouse ('so cliché' Clint scoffed to himself) when the ceiling rattles and debris starts falling causing Clint and Natasha to curse and roll out of the way. Bruce is safely sequestered at the tower, Pepper managed to pull Tony into a board meeting, and so it is just the two assassins, Thor, Steve, Bucky, and Harry.

As the debris clears they see a man slowly descending towards them.

"Seriously?" Clint calls out as he rolls to his feet. "Can't anyone walk into a confrontation anymore? Does it always have to be a dramatic descent?"

The figure ignores him, shrouded by a large dark cloak that makes Harry think Death Eater even as he remembers the fall of his people. A large, creaking step forward by the figure (Man? Woman? Alien?) makes Bucky tense gears clicking as sinks into a fighting stance.

"I seek judgement, from the Fair One." As the figure speaks, they lower their hood, showing a set of rainbow scales for skin and orange tendrils for hair.

"I don't know who the fuck that is." Seeing the identity of their guest, if anything, sets the team more on edge. Rarely, does an alien come to Earth – to New York – and have good intentions in mind.

Eyes bright and friendly glance at Bucky (at the Soldier) and scan over Steve and Thor before settling on Harry. Of course. It's always Harry isn't it?

Harry steps forward, worn trainers scraping along the debris on the concrete floor as he moves. "Fair One?" He murmurs to himself. "I haven't heard that one before."

The Figure – alien – forms something akin to a grin but has too many teeth to make it look like anything pleasant before locking eyes with Harry and exposing it's (his? her?) neck. "I am Fafnir, of the Ookola. I have come seeking justice, judgement; of the gouchta who murdered my sister." As it – he – talks a more prominent noise is heard a constant instance beep and the dragging of chains.

In comes two more aliens – Ookola? – one with blue scales and yellow feathers for hair draped in warm, dark furs. The other indigo scales with lilac silk for hair cascading over their body – bare body – Natasha notes as she instinctively takes in the new comers (indecent? Socially acceptable? Perhaps no separate genders? She wonders to herself, before quickly moving on. They've met enough aliens to set these details aside for now.) Her eye catches on the one in a middle, draped in heavy chains; each link being the width of Steve's biceps they looked out of place on a frame so fall. This prisoner, for that is what he must be, had no scales but rather smooth grey skin like polished stones. They possessed no hair or other adornments just smooth gray skin, a white smock, and eyes that where as white and clouded as opals.

"Why him?" Steve asks calmly, politely. It is the same tone he used on Fury when demanding Bucky's freedom and it makes the team tense instinctively. This is a man protecting his own. A man who has jumped on grenades, drove a plane into an ocean, who broke and bled and wept to keep everyone safe. Who would sacrifice everything in a second for those he cared for.

There is no deceit in his eyes when Fafnir steps forward. "He is death; the end, the ending, the ended. The constant for all life. He is always, intrinsically, fair. Everyone is equal in death's eyes. We have researched this planet and the concepts of the judgement that determines good and evil comes after – is from another. In death, for one blazing instant, everyone is equal. He is the only one who can be objective – the only one that is fair."

They glance at Harry, but no one relaxes from their ready stances. There is no denial on his face, just cool acceptance.

Inclining his head, the very picture of regal and composed, Harry's quiet voice carries. "Very well. I will preform a judgement, but I need to consult with my team first and you need to contact yours, don't you?" He inquires with a quirk of his brow.

The team follows Harry and his trailing cloak as he winds through the main floor and into a tiny abandoned office; with no windows the only sights to the main room are through the door. The team has thousands of questions but not here, not with an unknown entity who could have technology to listen.

"I will be back, but I need you to stay here. To not look, no matter what. I will be using just a drop of my power, but it is too much for you." His eyes catch Steve's then Bucky's, "Any of you. Fafnir was wrong you know. I am not death, I am its master and there are not words to explain to you the difference. On how it makes me less the death and at the same time so much more. So, you can not look. Super soldier or not, trained assassin or not I was not made to be seen by the eyes of the living, not truly."

Quietly, he pulls them all in tight. "Sometimes I think you forget I am not human, I am not soft. Not anymore, not ever again, but I can look the part if I need to. So, I am going to do the best to serve justice to these people and later we will go home, and you will tell the others and I will answer all the questions I can. For now, though, for now, look away."

He steps out of sight and all they can see is his shadow but its enough. Impossibly large and infinite in ways none of them understand. The very absence of light and yet the radiance of a thousand burning suns searing itself into their vision. And it was most definitely an it. Sometimes horned, sometimes winged, with the stardust of universes dripping between the teeth of its grin like blood. There is no comparison for it. No frame of reference for it. It is everything. Every answer and every question, all in a single moment. It is nothing, the vastness of space, the depth of the ocean. Their minds cannot, will not, cope with this.

"Don't look," he told them. "I will burn you out." They didn't listen and at the mere pinprick of his true self they are faced with something that defies their comprehension. Something that has existed as long as life and will still be around when all life ends (and what is except for the last station to get off at?). The chill of a victim's scream, the warmth of a mother's love, the fear of death and the flight from it before you realize that it's always been there – in the corner of your eye and no matter how quickly you run, it is always there first waiting. A godfather's courage and trust and hope. Everything is laid bare. And it hurts to look.

Lies, after all, are so much kinder than these awful, terrible truths.