"A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor
Is just the kind of mess I'm looking for.
I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight
I want to see the bright lights tonight
Meet me at the station don't be late
I need to spend some money and it just won't wait
Take me to the dance and hold me tight
I want to see the bright lights tonight."
– Richard Thompson
Iron Man, and The Avengers, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material benefit.
So Thor's father's got this idea that the way to make Loki pay for his crimes is to send him to Earth and have him make up for some of the damage he caused there. Crazy, right? He destroyed half of New York, did his best to subjugate the entire planet, so you send him right back there again? To do what, to fix things there? Tony's recommendation would have been a nice padded cell, maybe one for Daddy-Who-Wants-Him-to-Fix-Stuff right next door. The Cap gets wind of it though, and he's like, "This is the greatest idea in the history of ideas. This will totally work." He references the Depression (OF COURSE): Apparently Roosevelt couldn't be satisfied just giving food to hungry people; he had to make them work for it first.
Steve's like, "Don't you see? It works even better for Loki, because he's the one who broke all this stuff in the first place." Yeah okay Steve, point well taken, but did you have to move him into Avengers Tower to do it?
Not that Tony cares. He's been staying in California most of the time anyway. He's got a lot of stuff to do, new ideas for the suit, modifications, and then new modifications that he doesn't think of until he sees the old ones in action. He's got Pepper in California (where she won't give up her apartment in Century City no matter how much he coaxes her). He's got his friends here. Rhodey's stationed sort of semi-permanent at Edwards Air Force Base, and Happy is very happy with the house he's bought himself in Woodland Hills, thank you very much. Why the fuck would he want to go back to New York? You know what? Screw New York.
Screw Loki too. ...Screw Cap. – Tony hears he has Loki picking up rubble from destroyed buildings. Serve him the fuck right. It's good enough for him. – Screw Bruce. He hears he's been fucking with Loki ever since he moved in. He pretends he's going to let the Other Guy out. Steve says Loki's pretty good at pretending not to be scared, but sometimes you can see a little something in his eyes. Tony tries not to feel guilty when he hears it. Jesus Christ, this is Loki we're talking about, am I right? Loki, who never stopped putting Bruce down from the first moment he saw him. Loki, who tried to fuckin' destroy his home town.
If New York was his home town. Which it isn't. Fuck New York. Fuck Loki... – You know what? Fuck Bruce as well.
...Okay, so Bruce, and Steve, and Loki are in New York. Tony's in California, where there's skiing, and windsurfing. – There's more hot chicks than you can shake a stick at. And there's Pepper of course, who means more to him than any number of hot chicks, in any combination. ...There's his work, which is important, and groundbreaking, and... Did he mention the windsurfing? Wonderful sport, windsurfing. He's never tried it yet, but if he wanted to, it would be important to have the Pacific right nearby. Like right out his back window, nearby.
And the only thing is, sometimes he gets to thinking about the portal. – No, he's always thinking about the portal, it's like, literally in his mind, all the time. – Sometimes he gets to thinking more about the portal. It's the one thing about the invasion that he can't talk about with anyone, because none of the others went through anything like that. Sometimes it's like he's living it all over again: He's got the missile in his arms, he's shooting straight upward... Up, up, through the clouds, and he sees this hole looming in front of him. He can see into the hole. That's the point, you know? He can see into it, not a lot, but he gets these glimpses. There's this whole world on the other side, this whole, alien world. And it's different, it's just so fucking different.
No one else in the whole world can understand about that, because no one else has ever been to another dimension and come back to talk about it. He's not going to tell Pepper, that's for sure. She's just going to get this expression on her face again like she's sorry for him. People don't feel sorry for Tony Stark. He's a fucking genius, and a billionaire, and he can get any girl he wants, anytime, anywhere. But he can't tell Rhodey either. Sometimes he gets the idea that Rhodey thinks he's cracked. Not good-cracked, the cool kind where it makes your musical taste better and your ideas edgier. Really cracked. Like, Howard-Hughes-at-the-end-of-his-life, Kleenex-boxes-on-your-feet-instead-of-shoes kind of cracked. ...And he can't tell Happy, because he never tells Happy any of the dark stuff. It just makes his face go all sad, and then Tony gets this feeling like he kicked a puppy.
Time goes by, and some other stuff happens. Let's spell it out in little short words: New suit-idea. Marathon work-session. JARVIS disabled; fucker couldn't shut up about the food, and the fucking sleep. One glass of Scotch, then two. That's all it takes on an empty stomach, and when you haven't slept in two days. It occurs to Tony that there is somebody else in the world who knows about other dimensions. It occurs to him that maybe he didn't like them either. Maybe that's part of why he was so crazy by the time he got to New York.
...It occurs to him that he doesn't have to just sit there wondering, he could go find out for himself. It's his fuckin' Tower the guy's staying in, after all.