Okay… this is the first thing I write in a very long time and english is not my first language, so please be patient with me. I have an amazing beta asgardianabsinthe (silver_lining), who's been doing a fantastic job (Thank you!) and you should go check her fics.

Now, about this story, it takes place after Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 and I twisted them all to fit my crazy ideas. Deal with it! :)

Please review and tell me what you think.
Enjoy!

Tony sighed in frustration and read the parchment for what felt like the one hundredth time. And it probably was. But the thing made as much sense as it did the first time, meaning: none!


He had found the letter the night before, when he came home from another boring meeting with potential clients. Pepper had given him the evil glare the entire time because his focus was anywhere but on the man speaking. But then again, she had been giving him the evil glare every time they met lately. Not the point! He was bored to tears and his client seemed to have been talking for hours.

When he finally got out of there, way past dinner time, and arrived at the tower he made a bee line for the bar. He needed a drink... or several, before going to the workshop to work on a new suit. That was when he found the very strange envelope addressed to him. Of course his first instinct was to take a step back from it, not knowing what it could be. Without touching it, he studied the letters forming his name Anthony Stark. Anthony? No one had called him Anthony since his father died. Neat penmanship. And Tony knew how to recognize expensive ink when he saw it. There was no post mark or even a return address, so it was delivered here personally.

"JARVIS, what's this letter?" He asked his A.I., still not touching the item as he reached for the tumbler and poured himself a drink. "How'd it get here?"

"I am sorry, Sir, but I have no recollection of how it appeared." Came the British voice a few seconds later.

That made Tony frown in genuine worry. Whoever put it there was smart enough to tamper with JARVIS. And Tony was supposedly the only one to know how to do that. For a moment he wondered if he could even trust anything his A.I. said, the thought made him panic.

"What do you mean you don't know how it ended up here?" He asked trying not to sound as desperate as he was feeling. JARVIS was designed to have no such flaws, if tampered with it was supposed to fix itself within seconds. This was not good. Not good at all!

"What I mean, Sir, is that one second there was nothing on the counter and the next there was the envelope addressed to you." The A.I. explained in his calm voice. "I ran every possible test I was able to and they show it is completely harmless. It contains no toxins or explosives."

"Show me the footage from five minutes before it happened." The engineer ordered and turned to the big, flat screen near the bar. Two seconds later he was watching his own bar with nothing out of place. The timer read 15:17:35pm., the man stared at the screen for five minutes for any change or sign of movement. There was absolutely nothing until the timer hit 15:22:35pm. and suddenly there was a white envelope on the exact same spot the original still was, as if mocking him.

"Repeat the last twenty seconds and zoom-in on the counter. Freeze the moment it appears." He ordered again and waited. For twenty seconds there was nothing there and then, just like before, the envelope was there, out of nowhere. No tampered clock, no sign of cut footage, no fucking owl dropping it. Nothing. "What the hell?" He mumbled, still finding all this hard to believe or even understand, but he had to admit he was dying to open the damn thing and find out what this all was about.

"JARV, are you sure there is nothing explosive or poisonous here?" He asked wondering if he should get one of his suits..

"I am, Sir." Came the quick reply. "But I suggest you call Agent Romanov or Agent Barton before you open it. It is rather suspicious how it got here."

If Tony didn't know any better he would say he was hearing some anger in JARVIS's voice. The A.I. was programmed to know everything that was going on at all of Tony's houses and somehow there was a strange envelope appearing out of thin air. Literally. Yeah, JARVIS was entitled to be angry over this.

"That's not gonna happen!" He heard himself reply. "They're busy fighting who-knows-what somewhere. My mail is the least of their worries." And no, there was no resentment in his tone as he said that. "I'm doing this."

Without any further delay, he grabbed the envelope, noticing it was sealed on the back with green wax and an L. He opened it carefully not to tear the paper or the seal and was only half surprised to find what had to be parchment inside.

Stark,

I believe this letter will surprise you, but its purpose is simple. I am officially giving you notice that I'm establishing permanent residence here on Midgard, or Earth, as you prefer to call this realm. This is part of my sentence given by Odin All-Father. I was sentenced to be imprisoned on Asgard, after which I was invited to leave with the sole requirement of contacting one of the Avengers if I ever decided to enter this realm again. For my own safety I am not disclosing my location, but rest assured I mean absolutely no harm to your people; I only seek the quiet life your Midgard offers. Please, preserve this parchment, it's enchanted to deliver messages both ways to prevent your technology from locating me, yet giving you the chance to contact me should the need arise. Feel free to do so if you require any further explanation.

Loki

By the time he finished reading his jaw was dropped all the way to the floor. This was Loki's letter. The God of Mischief voluntarily wrote to tell him he was living on Earth. For some stupid reason the only thing his brain was freaking out about was the fact that Loki had a way to get inside the tower without setting off any alarms. Or at least to make stuff appear. What was stopping him from sending a bomb? Or poison his food? Or filling his bed with snakes? He sighed and poured himself the much wanted, and needed drink, drained the glass and refilled it.

So... Loki was back on Earth and no matter what he claimed, Tony wasn't about to believe the god wouldn't try something evil again.

"JARVIS, we're hitting the workshop! I want to know everything there is to know about this damn parchment!" He announced, drinking his second whiskey in one go. He grabbed the offending envelope and went downstairs.

"Sir, may I suggest again that you call someone else to deal with this?" The British voice asked when he entered the workshop.

"Someone who?" Tony asked instead of answering, making an effort not to snap at is creation. "SHIELD is gone, the Council is in pieces, Fury is missing along with Clint, Nat and Steve. Hydra is everywhere and I don't want them getting their hands on Loki." Who knew what they would do with the crazy god on their side? "So, who do you suggest to call?" By now it was obvious it was a rhetoric question.

"Maybe you should call Thor, Sir." The machine insisted.

"Oh, yeah! Because all that family drama is exactly what I need!" He retorted sarcastically. "I'm dealing with this on my own."

"As opposed to everything else..." Came the sarcastic reply and again, Tony could almost hear a sigh at the end and softened his stance. For the past three months it was only him and JARVIS at the tower with the occasional visit from Bruce. The A.I. was the only thing keeping him sane, well fed and rested while his world fell apart around him piece by piece.

His Malibu mansion was destroyed and the reconstruction was taking a lot longer than anticipated, even more now that Pepper was not directly involved any more.

Pepper... the man gave a tired sigh thinking about his ex girlfriend. After the mess with the Extremis she decided she couldn't deal with the stress anymore and made him an ultimatum. Iron Man or Her. He never gave her an answer, he couldn't do that. He was Iron Man. He would never forget why he created his first suit and giving up now felt like a betrayal to Yinsen and to all the people who died with his weapons. If she couldn't understand how important this was to him, then they were a mistake. He kept all his suits after the battle and she packed her things three days later. She was still his CEO and he hoped one day they could go back to being friends but it was still too soon for that to happen. So he was now stuck with Hill as his assistant and official liaison to the Stark Industries when he could avoid to go there himself. He was sure she hated him, but there was nothing new there, she wasn't his biggest fan while working for SHIELD either. That was another huge mess in his life now. SHIELD was gone and somehow the world thought that, with the Avengers scattered as they were, it was Tony's responsibility assure the global security. Well... at least Stark Industries was better than ever. Yeah... at least there was that!

"Okay, JARVIS, let's get this party started." He said as he put the parchment and envelope to be properly scanned. "We need to find Loki and soon, before he does something."

"Of course, Sir, where should we start?"

"Tell me everything about the parchment." Tony ordered. "I want to know the material, the ink, where they were made, everything that was in contact with... and whatever you can think of." Maybe this way he would be able to pinpoint where Loki was, or even his general location.

"That will take at least a couple of hours, Sir." JARVIS warned but started the scans immediately.

"I know, but it's our only option." Because he sure as hell wasn't about to use the thing as Loki oh so kindly suggested. Not until he exhausted all the other options anyway.

Tony decided to use that time to get all kind of information out of that letter and dissect it into a list of questions. Of course the main one was 'Why?' The god had an entire universe to explore and torment away from the Avengers, from Odin's constant vigilance, from Thor and from all the people he thought as inferior and tried to enslave. So why was he here? Why was he even out of the dungeons of Asgard? Tony knew he had faked his own death before the attack on Greenwich, Thor had told him everything that happened when he came to visit with Jane a couple of months before. He knew he tried to impersonate Odin while keeping him hidden but the plan backfired and the All-Father escaped. So why was he sentenced to such a short time in prison only to be kicked out of there some months later? Nothing about this was making any sense to him. For a moment, he reconsidered JARVIS's advice to call Thor, only to dismiss it ten seconds later. He wasn't sure his fragile mental stability could survive the drama between those two.

His attention went back to the only piece of probable information in the letter. Loki said he was on Earth because of the quiet life. He couldn't be sure if the god were being honest and really living away from the chaotic New York and other big cities, but they needed some place to start looking and secluded areas were as good a place as any.

"JARV, I need you to find out all the strange deaths, thefts, disappearances, events or phenomena over the past month." He requested trying not to cringe with the amount of information he was about to be bombed with. "I know it's a lot, but exclude all the normal occurrences and focus on the strange ones, like someone growing a tail or a rain of frogs. Weird stuff." It was a shot in the dark and he was aware of it, but Loki was the God of Mischief, maybe he was living up to the title.

"Yes, Sir. Should I focus somewhere specifically or you want a global search?"

Tony had no way of knowing if Loki was serious about the quiet life and it would be stupid to overlook. "Start out of the big cities. Rural or remote areas first." At least it gave them somewhere to start.

Almost three hours later he was starting to doubt his own sanity after reading dozens if not hundreds of strange events. He swore he would shoot himself if he read another article about little girls speaking on different/ancient tongues or farmers claiming their pigs/horses/chickens talked to them. Not to mention the gore of some of the crimes. So far he had basically nothing. Excluding the pounding headache.

That was when something caught his attention. Someone had stolen a necklace from a museum in Norway two weeks ago. There was nothing special about the jewel, being surrounded by other pieces a lot more valuable, except according to some old legend it belonged to the Goddess Frigga. Loki's mother. Or adoptive mother, whatever. Had Loki been on Earth for more than two weeks already?

"JARVIS, get me everything you can find about this robbery. Surveillance, police records, newspapers... everything." This was his first lead since finding the damn letter, he wasn't about to let something escape him.

"Of course, Sir." The A.I. responded. "Meanwhile, I have the first results from Loki's letter. Unfortunately, they are very vague."

"Vague?" Tony frowned, not liking what he was hearing. He had the very best technology in the world, how could the results be vague?

"I was unable to identify the material of the parchment or the envelope. I can tell the ink is not chemical, probably from some plant or fruit, but completely unknown to us. The wax used to seal the letter is very common, though, you can find that brand everywhere in the world." JARVIS explained showing the results on the screen. Both the parchment and the envelope were pristine clear, save from the ink and wax. I was able to date it around 1360 years old. It is fully embedded in magic matching Loki's. SHIELD had his magic signature studied after the battle of New York and I used their results to compare it to this."

"So this is definitely from Loki, but we can't use it to track him." The engineer summarized with a tired sigh. He went to the small area of his improvised bar and started to pour himself a drink only to shrug and put the glass back in its place, taking the bottle instead. No, he wasn't trying to get drunk but he needed something to help the pounding in his head and the alcohol usually worked like a charm, a lot better than the pills.

"You could try the spectrometers, Sir." JARVIS suggested. "And you shouldn't be drinking considering you skipped dinner."

"No. I only have private access to the ones owned by Stark Industries." Tony explained, ignoring the part about his drinking. "I don't want to alert anyone to Loki's presence. Not yet anyway." There was nobody he could trust with this information yet, not with Hydra infiltrated everywhere. They would jump at the opportunity to use Loki as a weapon against their enemies and he wasn't sure the god could or would refuse them.

"For now we follow the necklace." He decided, taking a few long gulps from the bottle before he put it away. It wouldn't do to get drunk now. "What do you have about it?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but it looks like some common robbery." He showed the newspapers and the police records. "Someone disabled the alarm, cut the cameras and knocked the guards out. They simply broke the glass and took the necklace."

Tony was analysing every detail on the screen, but it didn't make sense. It was all very... amateur, for lack of a better word. Loki could just magic the necklace out of there, like he did with the letter, but whoever did this triggered the alarms right before disabling them, along with security footage. This seemed the work of a common thief, not Loki. But they had an entire museum full of valuable, priceless art and jewellery, why would they steal only what was supposed to be Frigga's necklace?

"This makes no fucking sense!" Tony muttered, rubbing his eyes to try and alleviate his headache.

"Maybe it's time for you to rest, Sir." The A.I. suggested. "You have been awake for almost forty-eight hours now."

Tony grimaced with the information and agreed to get some sleep. "Okay... keep following the news and the police records about the necklace and wake me up if something happens." He ordered, putting the letter back in the envelope and taking it to the bedroom, noticing it was dawn. He'd spent his night in the workshop because of that stupid god and apparently in vain!

He read the letter again and again, but it still wasn't making sense to him. He was tired, he had a headache and the lack of sleep wasn't helping. Throw the lack of food and the couple of drinks he had into the mix and nobody could really blame him for what he did next. He grabbed a pen from the bedside table, turned the parchment around, and wrote the most pressing question he had. How the fuck did you did you dodge my security and sneak this letter into my fucking tower?