A/N - This is (speculatively) movie-based - I know nothing about the comics. Please excuse the utter lack of canon-ness - there are probably a tonne of mistakes and inconsistencies with the movie/comic canon. I wasn't sure which section to put this in as it's basically a Thor/Iron Man/Avengers movie crossover, arrgh.
I am several chapters ahead with this one, so I will be uploading at least a few more very soon if anyone is interested at all.
Prologue
Tony stretched his arms a little behind his back, popping out a few of the knots of tension that had built up in his muscles during the last few hours of sitting waiting for Loki to make a move. He really, really hated that goddamn jötunn.
Mr Tony Stark, aka the Iron Man, one of the much vaunted Avengers, was hanging around the lobby of a large, corporate building in downtown New York waiting for the God of Mischief to execute the next step in whatever the hell his current scheme for world domination was. He hadn't, he reflected, been given much to go on; he just knew that Loki was going to cause some sort of mayhem in roughly this area at roughly this time. This job sucked. He was starting to regret giving Nick Fury the time of day when he appeared with a stack of papers with "Avengers Initiative" written on them.
A few months ago, Tony Stark had been blissfully unaware of the existence of the Avengers. He had been blissfully unaware of the existence of gods and Asgardians and most of all Loki. In fact, not long before that, he had simply been a businessman, a highly successful weapons contractor. He had not been someone who would be expected to stop a wayward god on a rampage. He was just leaning back against the wall cursing his luck when a group of about eight workmen barged into the foyer in hard hats. The man at the head of the group walked over to him quickly and purposefully. "I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the building," he said in an authoritative tone. Tony scowled in annoyance. He was already having a terrible day and now a bunch of idiotic humans were going to get in the way. The man was a typical builder with a bit of a management complex, although there was something about him that made Tony a little uneasy.
He shrugged the feeling off. "Why?" he asked in typical uncooperative fashion.
"The place is being renovated. Didn't you see all the signs saying 'No entry. Authorised personnel only'?"
"No." It was possible he was being dense, but he did not recall this at all. The building had been closed for the evening, sure, but he wasn't aware of any signs.
The man gave a theatrical sigh. "Well you don't look like authorised personnel to me," he drawled. "So I suggest you clear out before you get hurt."
Tony grimaced and made to walk towards the exit, before deciding he felt like making himself awkward. "How about you're the ones to clear out? I have important business here. Who the hell does renovations at this time in the evening anyway?"
"Contractor's orders," the man replied smugly, with more than a hint of a glint in his eye. "We've already laid dynamite, for your information, so it really is your choice whether to stay or to leave, although I suggest it might be the latter."
Wait a minute. "Dynamite?" He looked around and realised the other men were checking various points in the walls, one of them examining what looked like the controls to a very high-tech and high-powered explosive setup.
The man in front of him simply smirked.
"Wait a minute. This is ridiculous; I haven't heard anything about this place being demolished, and the area hasn't been cordoned off. What the hell are you people up to?"
The smirk on the other man's face was getting ridiculous. Tony was having a hard time not punching his hand through it. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about the rest of the area either. While you've been relaxing here attending to 'important business', we've rigged up the whole place."
"What… the…?" The penny was starting to drop. He lunged for the man, but was nowhere near quick enough, and didn't have the case near enough to get into his Iron Man suit. His essentially human reflexes were nothing like quick enough to catch the other man who had seamlessly morphed into a sleek, dark haired man in a smart trench coat with a sarcastic smile and glinting green eyes.
"Loki!" he yelled, a little less intelligently than he would have liked.
The God of Mischief gave him a patronising clap. "Good detective work, as usual, Mr Stark," he said, in the manner of a CEO congratulating a business associate. "Without your hard work, none of this would have been possible."
"You can't blow up this whole area," Tony protested, "there are residential flats here, as well as half of the most important business buildings in New York."
Loki pretended to look downcast for a moment. "Ah well, when you put it like that… I suppose I'd better remove all the dynamite that I've spent the last few hours preparing… Or, conversely…"
Tony lunged, focussing all his well-honed reflexes on catching the god by surprise. To his own surprise, and Loki's, he managed to grab him by the throat, pinning him to the wall. By this point the others had cleared out of the room and were vacating the area. The timer on the wall a few feet away was ticking ominously. A look of panic appeared in Loki's eyes. Tony's mind raced; how was he going to be able to restrain Loki and get the hell out of there all within about 20 seconds?
His question was answered for him when the apparition in front of him disappeared in a puff of smoke and the real Loki's laugh echoed throughout the room just before the explosives detonated.
"Shit," Tony muttered under his breath as he realised the miscreant Asgardian had well and truly tricked him.
