A sickening drawl of laughter.
"Do not think you can trick us, Asgardian." The God of Mischief whirled his mind, searching for a way to do just that. "Not again." The clutching hand dropped his neck and vanished. All vanished, in fact, leaving Loki alone on the desolate rocks.
He sighed, reminding himself to be calm. However, he didn't take kindly to being used as petty bait.
_
Stark Tower was a bright glowing light bulb, making fun of the surrounding buildings for their inferior power. Inside the shine, the Avengers celebrated along with 200 of Tony's closest friends. He had finally done it—created a new element, all on his own, to serve as a source of unlimited power. He had spent countless insomniac nights slamming his head into diagrams and notes on the Tesseract, blowing holes through his lab walls and blaming Pepper, and mixing chemicals most of the world couldn't pronounce, and now he'd done it.
Naturally, he threw a giant, tacky party.
He called the substance Veridite, and it glowed with a just-barely-visible green hue. It glowed out of his arc reactor, and out of the newly designed compatible light bulbs in the lounge room, where past-drunk young women tried to steal a moment of the genius' attention.
"Congratulations, Stark," Steve slapped a friendly pat on Tony's shoulder. "You've really changed the world this time."
Tony grinned and wobbled the ice in his glass. "That's what I'm here for, right?"
"Hey!" Stark yelled above the din of the room, "Hey, let's have a toast. To uh. Me!" A roar of approval. "No but really uh. How about a toast to the future, and the possibilities, and uh. Progress!". He wildly flailed his glass into the air, and the room did the same.
"So articulate," Clint muttered at his side, biting back a laugh. Tony rolled his eyes and poured himself another drink. Low bass droned out of the surround sound system.
The Avengers had been staying in Stark tower for some time now. Nick Fury had rounded them up again after another alien race had descended into the city, seemingly having learned from Loki's portal. After yet another attack, they formed a constant force, fighting for the human race, and also eating breakfast together.
In a sudden crash of lightning, the power flickered. The room went silent, stunned. Tony's eyes widened in horror. Could a sudden storm really compromise his perfect power…?
There was a booming noise, a thud, the eyes of the room flicked around nervously. And then, the door burst open.
A giant blonde Thunder God grinned wildly from the doorway.
"My friends!" Thor yelled. The party nervously chuckled and went back to their drunken revelry.
"What are you doing here?" Tony asked, but he smiled.
Thor gave him a rough hug and then grew somber. "My br—Loki has escaped prison and is no longer in Asgard. He is shrouded from Heimdal's vision and I hoped to come here and make certain he has not returned to Midgard. No troubles here, I hope?"
Bruce emerged from a corner. "Nothing Loki-related. How did he escape?"
"We do not know," Thor hung his head sadly, and Tony thought how much he'd missed this guy, and also thought how bad it might be for them that Loki had escaped.
"He seems to have teleported. But I know not how. Such magic is blocked in our prisons…"
"If he was here, we'd have gotten him by now. We've all been staying here." Natasha jumped in. She didn't smile.
Tony looked around at the worried expressions in his immediate surroundings and began to panic that his party was being out shined by that little shit Loki and his little problems. "Hey, guys, come on, we're trying to party here. Thor, its good to see you man, don't worry about little brother for a bit. Have a drink, stay a while. In case the rest of the galaxy hasn't heard, I just changed the god damn world." He raised his eyebrows at Steve, who chuckled. Thor heaved out a sigh and accepted a glass that Tony produced swiftly from the bar.
"Yes, alright. I have heard word, Stark. Very impressive.". Thor downed the glass of whiskey in one swallow, and the group quickly forgot about the escaped God of Mischief for the rest of the evening.