Chapter 1: Chocolate Bars in the Park

Tony wanted on record that this time it wasn't his fault.

The Avengers had been called to assemble very early on a Friday morning. Or was it Saturday? Was it even morning or was it night? It was possibly Sunday. Okay, so Tony didn't know what day it was; he hadn't slept in a while. The point is that it was dark and Tony was irritated that some villain of the day, actually villains of the day, were causing trouble in Central Park. Consequently pulling him away from his highly essential, life changing project of creating a coffee machine that was incognito as a toaster, with this Tony could finally prevail over Steve and Pepper's combined efforts in confiscating his coffee machine whenever he wasn't looking. Many attempts had been made to secure his precious coffee maker; making it invisible, welding it to the outside of the tower 980 feet in the air, locking it in a titanium, quattuorvigintuple coded, safe, and making it an essential component of the arc reactor powering the tower. All thus attempts has somehow been foiled, he wasn't sure how they pulled off the last one but he suspected a certain sneaky spider had a hand in it. This time Tony knew his plan would work. The others were expecting something extravagant and obvious, thus while they were distracted by his decoy coffee machines, little coffee-toaster would be safe in his workshop.

Unfortunately, the call to assemble came just as Tony was about to sample his creation's creation because that's what made supervillains villains. Apparently, Loki and Amora had been sighted near the Central Park zoo by a party of tourists, and since whenever those two were together there were many explosions and screaming civilians and sometimes a mind controlled, hypnotised, love potioned Thor, Fury wanted the Avengers to check it out. At least this time Thor was with them so he wasn't under Amora's spell. Probably.

"Iron Man, Thor, any sign of Loki and Amora?"

"Coming up to the zoo now Cap." Tony replied over the coms. Flying up to the area the sorcerers had reportedly been seen Tony didn't see much, not because they weren't there but because it was dark. For some reason the street light around the zoo were out, Tony suspected the two sorcerers were responsible.

"See anything Thor?" Tony asked the Norse god flying to his left.

"Nay, the glowing bulbs do not glow. I see naught but tree tops."

Tony turned to Thor sceptically, you would think a so called advanced race of super powerful, magical, alien gods would be able to see better than the average human. Tony told Thor as much.

Thor looked at Tony, frowning. "I would think with all thy boasting of thy genius, thou would have a flash-torch in his 'amazeballs' suit."

"It's flashlight Thor." Natasha said over the coms.

"Amazeballs?" That was Bruce.

"I taught him that." Clint.

"Everyone focus on the mission at hand," Steve, the ever studious leader, "Tony don't you have night vision and heat signature detection in the suit?"

"Of course I have Cap. What do you take me for, Hammer?" Just the thought of Justin Hammer made Tony shudder in repulsion. Turning his attention back to the trees Tony scanned the area for heat signatures, approximately 600 feet away them were two figures standing among the trees. "Got 'em Cap." Tony reported flying towards the targets.

Loki and Amora were standing facing each other, they didn't appear to be doing anything nefarious. Amora was saying something making mildly aggressive hand gestures as she spoke and Loki wore the expression he usually directed at Thor, the I-knew-you-were-a-fool-but-sometimes-I-can't-believe-how-foolish-you-are look. As Tony and Thor got closer, the quinjet right behind them, Amora stopped talking and looked up.

"Loki and Amora we are here to arrest you, surrender peacefully and no one gets hurt." Steve ordered over the quinjet speaker system.

"Avengers," Amora sure sounded pissed, "this is none of your concern, leave before I extinguish you from existence." As daunting as that sounded, threats were a package deal with the superhero gig so Tony wasn't overly concerned.

"Amora." Now that was odd, was it just Tony or did Loki sound like he was warning Amora against extinguishing? No, that made no sense Loki tried to extinguish them as often as Dr Doom attacked the Fantastic Four. He loved extinguishing.

"What's up Rock of Ages, don't want your partner in crime to steal the spotlight?" Not his beat line ever.

"Stark," Loki had an impressive sneer, "you know not of what you speak, leave now."

"Not gonna happen Loki, you're going back to your cell in Asgard and this time your going to stay there. No more conveniently timed pointy ears war for you."

Green magic began accumulating in Loki's hands. "So be it, I warned you." The matter of fact way Loki said that was slightly concerning. Amora also moved into a fighting stance, her hands glowing her usual green-gold but the energy emitting from the right had a strange purple tinge to it. Taking a closer look with his HUD Tony realised Amora was holding something in her hand, it was small enough for her to conceal with her fingers.

"JARVIS scan the object in Amora's right hand."

"Scanning now, sir. Scan complete, energy signature unknown."

"Avengers, Amora has possession of something with an unknown energy signature. It's probably magical in nature." Tony really disliked that sentence. He really hated magic, it besmirched beautiful, beautiful science. Someday soon Tony would figure out how magic worked and reveal the science behind this unscientific phenomenon.

Whilst Tony was distracted with his mid-years resolution Amora flung a fiery green ball of energy at him, Tony blasted upwards barely dodging. Loki had disappeared, though from the sounds of it and the quinjet's erratic flight path to the ground, Tony suspected Loki had reappeared in the jet. Tony dived at Amora hand repulsors outstretched, he managed to nail her in the shoulder, sadly Amora also got him in the leg facilitating an unhappy reunion with the ground.

After that things got a little messy. Tony and Thor were engaging Amora; Cap, Widow and Hawkeye were playing illusionary tag with Loki and Amora's pet guard dog, Skurge, had appeared from nowhere to battle the Hulk. In the midst of being thrown through a bunch of trees by an energy blast Tony saw Loki take an explosive arrow to the face, said arrow seem to do nothing except make him very, very, angry; with a gesture of his hand Clint's bow and arrows dissolved into metal filings. Loki then promptly got a shield in the back. By this time Tony had stopped going through trees and was taking a small break in a splintery ditch of his own creation.

"Enchantress, as a citizen of Asgard thee will face Asgardian justice."

"Oh Thor, my love, soon I will make things right. It will be a paradise for the two of us, with the glory of battle and mead and shield brothers for you and no Midgard or Asgard to get in our way. We will be happy together, forever." Whenever Amora started spewing her words of undying love Tony was never sure if he should interrupt her with a missile to the face or take Thor and get him as far away as possible from the crazy bitch. The fervent way Amora spoke was disturbing to say the least. "Soon, soon. I will bear children for you, we will live isolated together, no one will come between us," as she spoke Amora clasped both her hands together and raised them above her head. The purple light increased intensity until her magic was engulfed in it.

Tony didn't know much about magic but he knew when things started to glow strange colours it was never good, Tony got out of his ditch, set his boot repulsors to 100% and tackled Amora in the side. This consequently sent them flying into Loki, knocking off his horny helmet and all of them to the ground.

"Tony!" Tony was a little disorientated so it took him a while to focus on the yellow-purple splodge above him.

"You look like shit, Barton." Tony informed the now in focus splodge. Clint opened his mouth, probably to insult him, yet was interrupted by Amora's screeching.

"You filthy, witless, mortal. How dare you interfere in my love again! I will allow no one to get in my way, never. All will disappear." Was it just Tony or were all Asgardians raving lunatics except Thor? Even Thor's friends the warriors three and Sif had seemed somewhat bonkers that one time he'd me them. Amora's magical device was no longer hidden in her hand because she was pointing it straight at him. Frankly, it was disappointing. It looked like a Mars bar that has melted slightly resulting in several chocolate free sections, it wasn't any bigger than a snack size bar either. The semi-melted bar began emitting it's purply light, Amora smiling dementedly behind it.

"Amora, stop." Surprisingly, that was Loki.

In that moment four thing happened; a beam of light ejected from the Mars bar, Tony raised his arms to his face, the Avengers moved forwards trying to stop Amora (though Tony knew they were too far away), and Loki intercepted the beam with an outstretched, glowing hand. There was a flash of light, then Tony lost consciousness.