Ohana Means Family
Summary: Tony gets knocked up. Loki disappears. Bruce is stumped. Thor grows a brain. Fury's a paranoid maniac. Odin makes Fury look like a saint. And Stark Tower needs an upgrade because between the Avengers and Tony's weird new family they're running out of rooms. Complicated and eventual FrostIron.
A/N: Don't ask me why, but this idea came to me out of nowhere and one day I realized I suddenly had fifty pages of something pretty substantial which more than doubled from there. This was germinated and written during a heavy bout of depression that has luckily since passed. It brought me a lot of comfort working on it and it still does. I just really really liked the idea of building this crazy family and what challenges that would entail for everyone to get to a good happy place in the end. So, that's the goal.
Warnings: Each chapter will be marked with appropriate warnings. For this first chapter: references to alcoholism and language, so pretty tame. For the rest of the story: frequent language, sex #thewholereasonthisstoryexists, and mentions of bodily functions and genitalia (I mean it's a story about male pregnancy, come on), LOTS of whump, and deserved ass-kicking. And Odin-bashing. Can't forget the Odin-bashing. Iron Man is about to get whumped like there's no tomorrow, because men truly are babies when it comes to real life. #sorrynotsorry. I guess it's also worth noting that this entire story will just be one big competition for Top SassMaster, so buckle up, kiddos. I am about to have way too much fun with this one…
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters here unless explicitly stated (there will be minor original characters eventually). I just borrow these marvel badasses to keep myself sane and somewhat mentally healthy day to day.
CHAPTER ONE – Being Human
"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. addressed. "Per protocol I am obligated to remind you of an anniversary today."
Without glancing up from his work, Tony droned, "Yeah, well Pepper and I obviously don't give a shit, Jarvis, so you can delete that directive."
"Forgive me sir, but that particular anniversary is not set for report until two weeks from today."
Tony opened his mouth to give a smart-ass response in return for the second interruption, but stopped short before J.A.R.V.I.S. could tell him why, mouth still agape. There was only one other anniversary around this time of the year. Tony closed his mouth and sat back in his chair. After a few moments, and tiredly rubbing his hands down his face twice, he sighed and got up from his workspace to head toward the stairs.
"Save everything and shut it down, Jarv," Tony said, pushing through the glass doors to the elevator.
"Very good, sir," the AI responded to the empty room that dimmed and powered down as requested.
When Tony got to the deserted and dim living space level of the penthouse J.A.R.V.I.S. wordlessly brought the lights up without Tony having to ask, including the shelf lighting beneath the bar. The refurbishment company did a good job on the floor. It looked just like it had before Manhattan Day. And to think the damage could have all been done over who wore green better. Tony smirked. The city was rebuilding itself. Tony was just finishing up fixing the rest of the damned tower. He was allowed to have these little light moments with himself, because it wasn't as if he had time to actually fix himself yet.
The bar was getting light.
And he needed a new fucking therapist anyway…
The second he stepped behind the bar to dig for a particular bottle and glass, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Habit made him pull it out. Pepper was calling him. Tony stared at it, then silenced the phone before tossing it onto the counter above his head. He had to move a box of expensive scotch (which he had been saving for a special occasion), so he may have shoved it aside with a little more force than strictly necessary, just to get it out of the way. They rattled loudly. He peeked at it a second later to make sure he hadn't broken any of the bottles. It was the really nice shit, after all.
Hiding in the back corner was a full bottle of red Syrah and next to it was a plain cheap metal cup.
He pulled both out, made quick work of uncorking the bottle, tossed the cork and the opener onto the counter, and made for the roof, leaving his phone purposefully behind.
"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. asked. "As Miss Potts has been unable to reach you, she has instructed me to-"
"Mute," Tony said, as the door closed behind him.
The relative silence that followed was soothing. Manhattan was never fully quiet, but it had its moments where it got damned close. It was a clear night, but seeing a single star was impossible with the light pollution. It actually made him miss Malibu. At least there you could see some stars, however few. He leaned against the railing and looked over the edge with his metal cup full and the bottle carefully stowed at his feet. He belatedly wished he brought a sweatshirt, but the wine would take care of that soon enough.
He'd been cold in that cave too.
"So what are you," Tony asked, as he stripped the casing from a wire at the worktable.
"A Whiskey guy or a wino?"
Yinsen spared him a single glance before turning back to measuring the copper. "Alcoholic drinks are against our religion, you know."
"I know. So?"
Yinsen paused and shrugged. "Wine I suppose? I had what I suppose was whiskey once. It wasn't pleasant."
Tony let himself smile a little. "I totally pegged you for a wino. You looked like a red kind of guy."
"I don't drink, Stark-"
Tony gave him a blank stare, and predictably, Yinsen rolled his eyes and his shoulders hunched down in defeat.
"Alright, yes… I have had it before, and yes it was red, but I couldn't tell you what it was. We had Christian neighbors. They were quite generous before… they left. It has been a long time. I do not think I remember it properly."
Tony made a noise of disappointment. "I'll think about it."
"Think about what?"
"What we'll drink when we get out of here."
"…ah," Yinsen answered after a moment of silence. "I will have to cede to your expertise on that matter then."
They didn't speak of the underlying tone of doubt. They just continued to work. And while they worked, Tony puzzled the matter of the wine in his head at the same time. He would kill for a good Malbec-
"What do you like about it," Yinsen asked after a while. "Is it the actual taste or the way it makes you feel?"
Tony shrugged. "Both. My mom was more the wine person than my dad. He was the whiskey guy. Wine reminds me of her. She was Italian, so… you know. I think my grandfather used to make his own. That's what she used to tell me. I thought about making my own when I was younger, if only to piss my dad off."
Yinsen turned to look at him. "Family traditions typically yield the best results. It's like Edison. By the time you reach your success, you can look behind you and see all the times you refused to accept failure."
"I doubt we'll have as many opportunities as Edison," Tony whispered, worry lacing his voice as he paused to inspect the rust build up on an important hinge.
"Not even a fraction," Yinsen agreed with a placating smile. "You should do that one day, you know. Traditions are meant to be passed down, but also meant to change with each new generation. Stark wine might be a fruitful new business venture for you."
Tony snorted. "Freaking board would kill me."
Yinsen agreed with a hum, then tapped the rusty hinge with his screwdriver. "Are you done staring at that? We've got work to do."
Even in the face of certain death, Yinsen had smiled.
It didn't take Tony long to find out, but he still marveled at his friend's strength in that dark cave. Tony had looked for Yinsen's family after the man's death. He'd spoken the truth when he said his family was dead. He'd had a wife and son. The boy had only been three. It wasn't as if Tony didn't believe Yinsen's story, but something inside Tony just needed to see it with his own eyes. He thought it would help, knowing their names, where their home had been, where they were buried, after he got back from Afghanistan…
It hadn't.
It just made the nightmares worse.
He missed Yinsen.
A lot.
Aside from saving his life, the man had given him something else Tony had no idea he'd needed. It went beyond his friendship with Rhodey. It went deeper, but without all the intimacy of an actual relationship. It was a companionship that made Tony feel like an actual vulnerable human being for once, and that it was okay, normal even. Tony Stark had spent his life needing to be so high above everyone else that he'd learned to fear being human. He could thank Howard for that, he knew, but he'd been ashamed to realize that in all that survival, he'd lost sight of what his mother had so desperately been trying to instill in him, which was to not let Howard win.
His therapist postulated that perhaps that was where his relationship issues stemmed from. At the time, Tony vehemently denied it, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He grew up in an emotional battlefield where divorce would have been the better option, but had never been an actual option for his poor mother.
Shit, the bottle was empty already?
Damn, that had to be a record for him.
Tony just rolled his eyes and went back to the bar inside, and instead of wine, found a very annoyed Pepper waiting for him. There were dark bags under her eyes, even under the make-up she wore, her hair was messier than normal, and most disturbing was that she looked thinner than she ever had. Tony hadn't seen her in person since the break-up, and he'd heard worried rumors from some of the other executives, but Tony had ignored them (unless of course it was actual harmful gossip about Pepper's character, because their relationship hadn't been a secret-and Tony had to make an example of one asshole who decided to open his cesspool of a mouth in the most damaging way, because if there was one thing Tony had zero tolerance for it was misogyny. And he made damned sure said asshole would never work in the state of New York, much less the entire country ever again-which was satisfying for him and he hoped was relieving for Pepper, but he'd never really gotten confirmation on that last bit, and decided he didn't need any). Looking at Pepper now made him feel like a shit for at the very least not making one office visit since the break-up. The selfish part of him reeled at that, and argued that he deserved his own time to deal with the internal mess left in her wake, and before Afghanistan maybe he would have believed that selfish part of himself. But he was a different Tony Stark, a better one, even if it meant on the inside he felt worse than he'd ever allowed before.
"You know," Pepper said. "You could always update your availability in your schedule."
Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to release it. "You know what day it is," he said, quietly.
"I know," Pepper replied, tired. "Which is why I tried to get a hold of you hours ago, but it's actually pretty hard to get a hold of you these days."
"Wonder why," he muttered.
The glassiness appeared in her eyes, and damn it if she started to cry Tony wasn't sure he knew what he was supposed to do. "Tony," she hedged with a surprisingly steady voice. "I've asked you before if you were still comfortable with us having a working relationship, and you said yes."
"My answer is still yes."
"Is it? You avoid me like the plague. Your CEO for your entire company."
Tony crossed around her behind the bar to give himself an excuse not to look at her and torture himself with all the blame. "I get back to you when you need me for company shit," he defended. "Today's just the exception. It won't happen again."
"I…" Then she stopped and took a moment. "Okay," she answered, backing down.
God, she sounded so much like his own mother right then that it fucking hurt and reverberated in his ears like a bomb. He was a fool to think he'd ever turn out the opposite of Howard, and Pepper was his proof. Fucking great. Tony leaned back against the lower cabinets behind him and crossed his arms. "We good?"
Pepper tried not to bite her lip. "Are we?"
"Yeah," Tony said blank and even. "Yeah, we're good."
Pepper was giving him that I know you're lying look. "What about you? Are you good?"
"I'm always good."
"It's okay if you're not, you know…"
Change the subject. Distract. "What did you need me for?"
Pepper knew his tactics, but visibly made the choice not to call him on it. "It's the merger with the company in Brazil."
"I thought we finished that up two weeks ago?"
"We did. But your lawyers found a loophole with one of the patents. They're working to close it, but can't guarantee getting the net profits back from when the original contract was signed. And when they sign this addendum-"
"They've got bargaining rights," Tony summed up, immediately pinching his nose in frustration.
"Yeah," was the pained response from his CEO.
"Whose fault is this? Is it Evan's? Because if it is he's already been on thin fucking ice-"
"It's not Evan's fault-"
"Do we need new arbitrators? Seriously, because I'm ready to tell HR to make it rain with severance letters-"
"It's mine, okay," Pepper exclaimed with shaking hands thrown up in defense. "It's… my fault. When you and I decided to break up two weeks ago I was… distracted and I wasn't thinking and I didn't… I'm sorry, Tony."
Tony somehow kept his mouth from dropping open.
Pepper NEVER let mistakes like this get passed her. Everything had her final approval because she was as obsessively detail oriented as he was. Given the circumstances, Tony could understand, but that didn't mean he wasn't disappointed and maybe a little unfairly angry with her. Pepper was better than those kind of stupid mistakes. Maybe that just proves it then… that they actually were wrong for each other if something like this could happen. He could feel he wasn't thinking rationally, but couldn't bring himself to actually fucking care at the moment because he had SO not prepared for all this shit when he woke up this morning-on a spur of the moment day off he so rarely took anymore which was just the icing on top of the proverbial cake.
Tony sighed. "You know I'm not upset about the money, Pepper."
"I know it's not about the money," Pepper agreed quietly. "It should be, but-"
"It's not. It's sloppiness that I actually care about," Tony reminded her, then rubbed a hand down his face. "Look it's fine, just… fix it?"
"It's being fixed. And I'm pulling double-duty to make sure it does-"
"You don't have to-"
"Yeah, I kind of do," she bit back. "It's just also my job to still tell you when mistakes are made. Especially if they're mine."
"Well, thanks for owning up to it?"
Pepper opened her mouth to reply, but closed it and swallowed around a very obvious lump in her throat. Tony knew he should feel bad about that last remark, but he was just tired and he really really needed another fucking drink without the judgment look of hell.
"You're welcome," Pepper finally replied, standing up from the stool and heading to the elevator, heels echoing down the hallway.
Tony didn't bother to stop her, much less watch her leave. Instead he stared at the folder Pepper had left on the bar. When the elevator closed, in a fit of anger, Tony grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be the empty wine glass, and threw it across the room. Distantly, he heard it shatter, but it didn't make him feel any better.
His eyes landed on the box of expensive scotch.
It only took a moment's consideration to spitefully grab one of the bottles, a glass, and the folder. He took the back stairs this time down to the lab. At the bottom, J.A.R.V.I.S. predictably denied him entry. "Per one of your directives, sir, I am unable to allow access to the lab with alcoholic-"
"Override," Tony growled.
The door beeped and a green light on the access pad lit up.
Tony wasted no time and crossed right over to his desk.
"Override accepted. You have used all three of your exceptions added to the directive. You will be unable to override this in future unless the directive is manually amended, sir."
"Whatever," he muttered, downing one shot without bothering to savor the taste. As he was pouring a second, his workspace lit up with his hard drive access on the left and most recent project open on the right.
"Would you like to open a new or previous project, sir?"
As the second shot burned down his throat and his head started to comfortingly swim, he sat back in his chair and flipped through the folder. He was mildly annoyed to find it filled with SHEILD bullshit. The folder ended up in the trash bin next to his desk. Maybe he'd consider taking a picture of it and texting it to Fury later.
Tony Stark did NOT work for SHIELD.
And Pepper fucking Potts was NOT going to be treated like a God damned messenger.
"New project, Jarv," Tony decided, grabbing the trash bin and heading towards the enclosed vented air-booth. "We're going to make a little video. Start recording."
After depositing the metal trash bin with the discarded SHIELD folder and paperwork in the center of the room, he briefly exited and re-entered with a canister of gasoline. He thoroughly doused the bin with it and pulled an old-fashioned lighter out of his pocket-the kind that actually stayed lit until you clicked it off. He gave the cameras a brief challenging look before dropping the lighter in the bin. He exited the room as the bin erupted in glorious flames.
Outside the secured and ventilated air-booth he dropped the closed canister of gasoline next to the door and headed back to his desk, relaxing in his chair and pouring himself a third generous shot. He sighed in relaxation and watched the bin and papers burn as he sipped the good scotch.
"Cut and print it, Scorsese," Tony directed. "That's a wrap."
"Would you like to archive or prep for delivery, sir?"
"Uh, delivery," Tony replied, slightly offended. "Jarvis, I solemnly swear I would never waste your talents on anything but exhibition."
"Who would you like me to deliver this video to?"
"Send it to Coulson with the message to pass it over to Fury. And tell them not to treat my CEO like a runner ever again."
"Message sent and received. It appears Agent Coulson is viewing it as we speak."
Tony smirked.
"Would you like DUM-E to take care of the cleanup, sir?"
"We could use a little ambience," he said, clearing his digital workspace. "Let it burn, baby."
"Very good, sir. Receiving incoming call from Agent Coulson."
"Decline. And you know what," he mused, pausing in his own methodical digital cleanup. "Pull up security and replay the penthouse footage from Manhattan Day, Jarvis."
"Anything in particular you are looking for, sir? Or the usual?"
"Oh, the usual."
Tony had watched it on repeat so many times. And every single God damned time it never failed to make him smile. He knew the footage by heart, but sometimes you just needed a little "Puny god," pick-me-up in the middle of the workday.
Or to start your day off.
Or for a late night snack binge.
Karma at its ultimate bitchiness was watching the maniac trickster god get his comeuppance in the best way possible. Though Banner had never been a fan of Loki even he couldn't stand to watch the footage more than once, though Tony attributed that to him just being modest. But the gif that Tony made and sent to him proved it, so he backed off the guy and settled back to sending him weekly nuclear science puns. Bruce had only started texting him back last week.
It was hard for Tony not to latch onto that lifeline with all his might. Rhodey had been away on a secretive Co-Op for the past two months and counting, Romanov, Barton, and Rogers were off somewhere doing God knew what for Fury, and Thor… Tony wasn't touching that depressed puppy with a ten-foot pole. Maybe Loki's relationship with his brother wasn't too hard to understand after all-but even so, don't fucking level a God damned metropolis because you have daddy AND brother issues.
Fucking Space Vikings…
And with the last drop of what was supposed to be their engagement celebration scotch, Tony's mood plummeted. There was more… but it was just upstairs, and he was really not looking forward to sifting through Jarvis' motherboard at the moment. He lazily dragged his eyes back to the end of the clip and watched as Loki tried to sit up, but found himself confronted by the Avengers.
Avengers.
It was a good name.
Maybe one day they'd be more than just a good team.
"I think I'll take that drink now," a defeated trickster god said with a nervous smile.
Tony snorted.
He was about to stand up and stumble his way up to bed, but there was one thing that had caught his eye, something he'd never noticed before. It was the color of Loki's eyes. They weren't as… glowy as he remembered them.
Huh.
"Jarv. Zoom in top left corner."
Yep, definitely not glowy…
"Go back a couple of minutes before the glorious ass-whooping. Annnnnd zoom in again."
Yep. Glowy…
His eyes narrowed in confusion. "Oookay, jump forward."
There was something about the surprised look that Loki was giving the Hulk when he came back to get him. It was as if he'd never seen the green guy before. Which, okay, maybe brain damage, but he was pretty sure the memory of a Norse god was like freaking vibranium. Then Tony noticed the time stamp on the footage. 15:30R. It seemed like only a second before it had read 15:24… that was weird.
Tony sat up straight and leaned forward. "Do me a favor. Blow the frames of the past ten minutes out for me…"
J.A.R.V.I.S. separated out ten frames across the digital display against the far wall. And sure enough, between frames 15:20 and 15:30 were six frames of garbled static. Tony may have been drunk in that moment, but he had never hallucinated when he was drunk before, and this was undoing a lot of happy inebriation he'd accomplished within the past hour.
"What the hell is that," he asked out loud, a mixture of shocked and confused. He specifically remembered doing diagnostics of security after that day and the footage showed no damage at all, so what the royal hell had happened to his archives?
"It is damaged data, sir."
"Yeah, no shit. How much time did we lose?"
"Five point three minutes by my current estimations, though it could in fact be more."
Tony narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. That was a long amount of time… A very long amount of time for a god to just be laying there dazed and confused… "Can you recover any of it?"
"I cannot recover its entirety," J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. "But partial recovery is more likely."
"Do your best. Time estimate?"
"Approximately seventeen minutes."
"Good. Clean it up, get me audio, and give me a transcript of whatever you get."
"Right away, sir."
Tony sighed loud and dramatic as he made his way over to the lab's kitchenette. "And after that do another full systems diagnostic. You're getting a tune up in the morning."
Fifteen minutes later and a near panic attack at possibly being out of his favorite coffee grounds and nearly breaking his favorite mug, he was back in his desk chair trying not to chug his precious steaming black life elixir.
"Suspense is killing me, Jarv," Tony complained. He had a meeting tomorrow at 8AM and he was going to be a literal zombie.
"I am almost finished the requested detailed analysis, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. shot back to him with some slight attitude.
Tony smirked. His A.I. had a tendency to get testy at 3am and it was a quirk in the system Tony kept forgetting to fix, though to be honest he didn't really want to. Maybe it would have been a little scary to some people, but to Tony the humanity behind it was actually comforting. It made him feel a little more secure that the one constant in his life could have feelings like him. Even J.A.R.V.I.S. needed his beauty sleep to function optimally.
"Analysis complete," J.A.R.V.I.S. finally relayed.
"Alright," Tony said, leaning back in his chair. "What do we got?"
The recovered images were choppy, but it showed Loki writhing on the ruined floor. There were sounds of gasping and choking, and then moaning. There were the glowy blue eyes, then a big burst of blue light-and then literally out of fucking nowhere was this cloaked alien holding the trickster god up on his knees by the throat.
Tony leaned forward across the desk, coffee forgotten.
Who the fuck was that tattered robed space wizard alien?
Loki struggled against the hold, managing to knock the hood down. Tony almost wished he hadn't because underneath the hood was a gross mottling of skin and blood? and other stuff Tony really didn't want to know about. In retaliation, the alien slammed Loki down to the ground like a ragdoll-and this time it definitely wasn't as funny as when the Hulk did it. The alien leaned over Loki, faces uncomfortably close, and finally spoke.
"You will finish what you started," the alien spat. "You will not let these insects make a mockery of the great Titan's far-reach! Get up and crush them, little god."
Then the hand the alien had around Loki's throat glowed blue. The effect on the god was like electricity. He tensed, shook, and his face contorted in pain as he struggled to fight it off.
"You… will make demands of me no longer," Loki gasped. He got in a solid punch, but the alien angrily spun the god against him/it in a headlock. Loki kicked his legs out and tried to reach up for the alien, but it tightened the hold it had around his neck.
"Wretch," the alien continued. "By his grace, he pulled you from the darkest depths of the great core before it could rip your cells apart and this is how you show your gratitude? I warned you what would happen if you dared defy me-"
There was some static, but when it cleared there was another flash of blue light and a loud screech-probably from the gross alien who just got its ass tossed across the room. On the floor was a panting and sweaty Loki, grasping a bloody dagger.
"I agreed to steal for you," Loki said, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. "Not commit genocide!"
"Your consent is irrelevant," the alien growled, getting to his feet and raising two blue glowing hands. "You are his tool, thereby my instrument-weak as you are. You do as I command, lying thief!"
"I am no one's pawn, least of all his, or yours. Get out of my head!"
"YOU WILL OBEY ME!"
A choked scream.
More static.
Lots of static.
Lots of blue light.
A different shriek.
The alien stumbled toward the open window. Loki had been on his feet, but had fallen back to his knees, then sank to his side, dagger still grasped in his left hand.
"You will pay for your subordinance," the alien threatened. "I will enjoy watching you suffer when the Great Titan tears through the Andromeda and through your precious Midgard. I will ensure your head rots on a spike when Asgard falls!"
Then the gross alien disappeared in a smaller flash of blue light, leaving Loki collapsed on the floor, shaking. Shaking? No… sobbing… with tears. It only lasted a few moments before the god pulled himself together, but regardless it left Tony in a state of shock as he watched a familiar portion of the footage where the rest of the team returned to take the god into custody.
"I think I will take that drink now," Loki stated, looking up with that nervous smile.
"Oh fuuuck," Tony drawled, covering his face with his hands. He fisted those numb hands in his hair, still staring at the frozen image in disbelief. Fucking alien mind-control…
Tony Stark was looking at an innocent man… well, god… but still. Fuck. Innocent?
Really…?
Really…?!
Tony dropped his head onto his desk with a thud. He groaned loudly and fisted his hands in his hair.
Innocent.
Fucking innocent.
Well, not entirely innocent, but innocent enough. If anything, the god was a glorified thief, but not a conscious murderer.
And then there was the melancholic Thor who refused recent SHIELD business because he was pre-mourning his brother's upcoming execution—
Annnnnnnnd, there's the guilt.
"Jarvis," he said slowly, hating every word coming out of his mouth. "Call Thor…"
The phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
Did the Norse idiot forget how to use it?
After the sixth ring Tony rolled his eyes. "Pick up Thunder-thighs…come on…it's not that hard-"
"MAN OF IRON," thundered the joyful god through the speakers. Tony could barely blame him because since he'd made the initial mistake of giving Thor a Stark phone, he vowed never to actually call him-for this exact reason. And yet, here they were. "HOW FARE THEE?"
"Jesus Christ, I fare with hearing damage, but that's beyond the point. This is an emergency. I need you to-"
"I HAVE JUST RETURNED FROM VANAHEIM. I APOLOGIZE FOR MY ABSENCE BUT I HAVE TOLD DIRECTOR FURY THAT I CANNOT SPARE-"
"God of thunder," Tony shouted. "Move the receiver away from your megaphone of a mouth!" He was so having the world's worst hangover in the morning… "…thank you! Now put the other end near your ear so you can actually listen to what I'm telling you. Good. I need you to come to the tower. It's not about Shield. I have something you need to see and it's about Loki-"
"LOKI?! MY BROTHER IS-"
"Adopted, I know-Thor, listen! I need you here now, okay? Like right this second now. It's about him and it's an emergency, okay? Can you do that-?"
"Disturbance detected on the roof, sir," JARVIS interrupted. "It appears Thor Odinson took your statement quite literally."
Tony jumped out of his chair and ran up the stairs. "The fuck he did!"
But when he made it to the roof's balcony, there was the god of thunder in all his Norse majestic-ness. Cape, hammer, freaking Stark phone in his hand, and a stupid smug smile on his face.
As Tony stepped out to meet him, he couldn't help but stare dumbfounded. "How the hell did you get here so fast?"
Thor shrugged. "No traffic."
Tony rolled his eyes and huffed. "Cute. Follow me."
"Has Midgard remained at peace since we last met," Thor asked, following Tony through the penthouse down to the lab.
"Peace is relative these days, isn't it," Tony threw back. "But no more alien invasions if that's what you're curious about. How's the phone? Does it need a charge?"
Thor stared at the phone in his hand and handed it over without a word. Tony spared it one glance before tossing it on the charge station on his desk. He would have to get Thor the newer model soon so he could test out the new feature.
"You said this was about my brother?"
"It is. Now, watch this and tell me what you see."
J.A.R.V.I.S. replayed the damaged footage and Thor watched in disbelief. Eventually the disbelief gave way to confusion, and then anger. Tony got a little worried when he saw the god of thunder struggling to reign in his anger. The last time Thor lost his temper, the small scale EMP from his hammer hitting Cap's shield had wiped out his suit's short-term RAM.
"Who is that creature," Thor growled, watching Loki's struggle. "I do not remember seeing it that day."
"I was hoping you had an answer," Tony replied. "Do you have any idea who this Titan is?"
"I do not. But the Allfather may."
"Yeah, well, let me know if he does," Tony said, before downloading the footage to Thor's phone and instructing him on how to play it back. "Better yet, let Fury know."
"If this is true, that my brother was being controlled," Thor mused, making his way back to the roof. "It would take a powerful being to do so."
"And it means someone else was pulling the strings on Manhattan day," Tony added.
"I will get to the bottom of this and return with answers."
"Just text me."
Thor stared in confusion, but shrugged and moved toward the platform.
"And hey," Tony called after Thor, raising his hands. "Not like I don't deserve the intergalactic Nobel Prize for this or anything, but make sure your brother knows he's still on my shit list."
For the first time in a while, Thor turned and looked at him with a spark of happiness. "My brother will owe you his life, Tony Stark. You have my eternal thanks for this. I would embrace you, but…"
"Yeah, we've talked about it," Tony said, waving him off. He didn't do hugs. "Not gonna change anytime soon. Might wanna go before you hit rush hour."
Thor was gone in a loud whirlwind of light and thunder.
Tony was left behind with the sadly sober and excited buzzing whirlwind of his own thoughts. Fury was going to have an aneurysm. This conversation with the SHIELD director Tony would absolutely enjoy.
A/N: First time writing for this fandom. Let me know what you think. I'm going to try and set a rigorous schedule for myself and update every week. I will also be posting this to my AO3 account, so the eventual and more explicit material will ultimately end up there instead of here. I'll try to remember and leave a note here anytime there's additional material on AO3. Thanks for reading!