This is for the Frostiron Month Tumblr: Prompt 2.
July 04-06: Fighting Together: Sometimes you just gotta team up to fight against a common enemy (or friend).
"By The Enemies I Have"
Disclaimer: The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.
Summary: [Tony/Loki] Frostiron Month 02: Thor had been their friend. Loki had been their enemy. That was just the way it had been. Once. Now, things weren't so clear cut.
Warnings: Slash. Established relationship. Loki/Tony. Character death. Dark!Thor. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Asgardian invasion. Past tense.
Rating: PG15 for violence.
A/N: The prompt took a turn for the depressing? Sorry?
Title: Taken from this quote: "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made." ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Words: 1,616
Chapter 1
Thor had been their friend. Loki had been their enemy.
That was just the way it had been. One on either side of the dividing line; one good, one bad; completely black and white, no blurred lines, no questions, no confusion. Thor had been their friend. Once.
XXX
When Jane had gotten sick, she had wanted to soldier through it. She never bothered complaining about it, since it happened so seldom; and that time had been no different. Darcy hadn't noticed anything weird about her, though she had been a little flushed. Ian didn't know Jane well enough to notice any difference, and Darcy trusted her enough to take her at her word.
Thor hadn't noticed either: in Asgard, hardly anyone got sick. It wasn't something that he had become accustomed to, or something he had seen enough to recognize the signs. So he had ignored her flushed cheeks, and the way her skin burned against the palm of his hand when he touched her, and attributed her trembling to the effect his presence had on her; the way she gasped for breath sometimes, because of their kisses; the way her legs couldn't hold her up, because he swept her off her feet: but never did he consider it was because of an illness.
When Jane collapsed, she was alone. Darcy found her two hours later, blood dripping from her nose and the left corner of her mouth. The doctors hadn't been able to save her. Thor hadn't understood why, for she breathed and her skin was warm and her heart beat against the hand he held over it (untrusting of the machines around her to tell him better what he could hear and feel), but the doctors had told him she was dead. Darcy had added the word 'brain' into the sentence, eyes red and puffy and fists clenched in anger, but Thor hadn't understood that either.
When the doctors came to turn off Jane's life support machine, Thor had attacked them. Not understanding what the difference between death and brain dead was, refusing to listen to the terrified hospital workers' attempts at explaining that Jane could only breathe because of the machine, that she would never wake up, and she had signed all of the necessary papers a long time ago that allowed them to shut her down, Thor had accused them of murder.
Jane was his girlfriend, the woman he was courting. Once he married her, she would be his Queen. And to attack the Queen of Asgard was treasonous and deserving of death. So, Thor had killed them.
He'd heard that eventually people had stopped trying to stop Thor or reach Jane. The nurse who had attempted to sedate him got Mjölnir to the side of her head and the doctor who had tried the same, sneaking around the other side of the bed when Thor was distracted, got thrown through the wall hard enough to take out two more on the way. Thor had called thunder down, through the window shattering it as he lay protectively over Jane, daring anyone to come near her with angry, narrowed eyes. The two security guards who had tried to rush him ended up getting fried and the third ended up with Thor's hand buried inside of his chest while the God snarled vicious threats of vengeance against him.
It was Darcy who managed to subdue him in the end; Darcy and her trusted taser. Darcy who was Jane's closest friend aside from Erik Selvig, so Thor let her come close, attempted to comfort her when Darcy threw him a sad, sorry smile and stuck her taser right into the hollow of his throat. Ian, hands almost useless from shaking, stuck the nurse's discarded syringe into the side of Thor's neck. When he dropped, it was with a roar, eyes wide in anger and betrayal (and a little fear, for Jane, Darcy had told them).
And when he woke, it was also with anger.
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He had blamed them all. Humans as a whole: disease ridden and flawed, traitorous and murderous, every one of them. He woke with screams and curses, fingers itching to curl around the throats of those who attempted to placate him. Jane had been gone when Thor managed to escape from SHIELD's holding cell, and when Iron Man had come to retrieve him, Thor had attacked him too. Accused his friends of betrayal, as Loki had once accused him: and just as Loki had not listened to his pleas then, Thor did not listen now.
He had been betrayed by those who were supposed to care for him. They had been his comrades, and they had allowed SHIELD to imprison him. Darcy had been his friend and she had attacked him; had helped the doctors get him away from Jane so that they could murder her. The humans Thor had always striven to protect, the realm that he had given up his own in favour of: traitors all.
Thor had not been forgiving.
His first idea had been to reconcile with his brother. Unfortunately for Thor, Loki had long ago left Asgard to travel freely through the nine realms (with the reasonable exception of Jötunheimr), and upon his arrival on Earth he had had the good fortune to accidentally save Steve Roger's life (teleporting half inside of someone who had been trying to kill him, no loss to the rest of the villains out there, and Steve would have handled himself eventually). Steve had been grateful. So grateful, in fact, that he occasionally brought Loki for coffee. Occasionally Tony joined them, or Bruce, (because Loki allowed that neither hated him enough to force Thor's presence upon him).
That was how Loki had come to, not quite live amongst them, but co-exist along with them. Not that Thor had known that. Until he had turned up, boasting about his defeat of the Man of Iron, and promptly been shown the door: or, rather, Loki had magically blasted him back the way he had come.
Maybe Loki should have kept his mouth shut, maybe not brought up the fact that he and Tony had been secretly screwing like rabbits for the past four months (Tony not wanting to see Steve's disappointed face, or disgusted face, or sad face, or any face really that his and Loki's relationship might have cause, and Loki just not wanting to deal with Tony's imagined dramas). But he had and he did, and he threatened Thor with castration if, when Loki went to check on him, Tony had been harmed (which he had been).
Thor had wanted Loki by his side when he rained justice and retribution onto Midgard. He hadn't responded to Loki's threats, other than narrowing those blue eyes again, as electricity crackled around the hammer clenched tightly in one hand. On his face though, Loki had read his thoughts: betrayer, liar, thief, aimed at Loki or perhaps at Tony for Loki's siding with him, but the anger there had Loki retreating before threats had the chance to be issued.
He went to Tony, who had been forced into bed by Bruce, and then to Steve, asked that he gather the others, and then went back to Tony. He had lain beside his lover, uncaring that all had to know, all had seen, as he told them of what Thor had asked of him.
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The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying went, so Clint had been the first to hold out his hand and welcome Loki to the team. If Thor wanted to kill him, he'd have to go through the Avengers to do it, and if Thor wanted to kill Tony, he'd have to go through Loki, and if Thor wanted to kill any of the rest of the Avengers? Well, everyone in the world knew that Tony Stark hated it when you touched his things.
"Do you think we're all going to die?" The voice startled Tony, bringing him swiftly from the thoughts of the past few weeks' right back into the present.
At his side, Clint was staring at him, wide-eyed and almost childish as he bounced on the balls of his feet. "You? Maybe. But I'm the invincible Iron Man, remember?" At Tony's other side, Loki snorted. It was a sound mostly of amusement, but Tony knew him well enough to catch the huff at the end, through his nose because it caught in his throat and his mouth was too dry to produce sound: fear. He was afraid.
They all were. But they had done their best to gather an army, and to evacuate those that needed to be evacuated. Other countries had done the same, just in case Thor changed the game from an intergalactic one to an international one (and everyone hated international politics, so Tony hoped not). Actually, Tony hoped that Odin Shitfather had managed to talk some sense into the blonde beefcake, and Thor was lazing about someone wallowing in grief and reflecting wistfully on better times. But that wasn't his life, or his luck, so Tony didn't hold his breath.
"If we die, we'll die trying," Tony said after a moment, when no one else offered Clint any sort of comfort.
"Are you damn sure you'll avenge it, Anthony?" Loki's voice was smug and amused and Tony rolled his eyes fondly. His response was prevented by the Bifrost opening above their heads, and the bodies that were suddenly raining down on them. It was the year 789 all over again, but this year, they were ready to fight back.
If they died? At least they'd take a few Asgardians with them.
The End
1 - 789AD: first recorded Viking invasion of England.