AN: Minor changes, fixed some errors and such.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own anything here, except maybe the plot specifics.
Dark.
It was dark out. The one time Tony tried to sleep like a normal person. "Why am I awake Jarvis?"
"Sir. You have urgent phone calls from Director Fury. He has been trying to contact you for the past 37 minutes." Jarvis sounded a bit frazzled.
"Fury? What the fuck does he want? None of my Avenger alarms went off." Tony was not a—he glanced at his watch still firmly on his wrist—2:59am person. (Yeah right.)
"I apologize, Sir, but the Director left no messages or indications as to what he wanted."
"Great. Just fucking perf—" Tony sat up, running his fingers through his hair in attempt to ease his frustrations as another voice joined him.
"Stark. Get your ass out of bed and to the Helicarrier." Tony scowled.
"What do you want Fury?" He could here Fury's frustrated sigh, but Tony's past week had been hell, so really didn't care.
He was fucking trying. It wasn't going so well, but he was trying and apparently that was the important part. Grinding himself into exhaustion and self-destructiveness was a lifestyle perfected over two decades and habits were damn hard to break.
"For once Stark, just shut up and get the hell up here." Click. Fucking hell, he was not in the mood for this shit. "Fuck you, Fury." With little effort his armor shifted out of his bones and molded to his body.
He smiled when he came within sight of the Helicarrier ten minutes later. The more-than-science upgrades were definitely nice.
Leisurely cruising under the carrier, he straightened up and shot above it, pausing to take in the scene. Fury was waiting for him on the deck. Ten feet away from him was Thor.
Standing with his parents.
For all that Thor seem like a fun loving, joyful, if not a bit strange, little, well not little, earthling, more than half the time he's been at the tower with the rest of the Avengers, Tony could only see him as the Crown Prince of Asgard right now. He was standing tall, chin up, cape blowing in the wind, hammer on his belt. He looked like, well, he looked like a god. To his left was a woman, his mother, standing with her hands gently clasped in front of her. There was something powerful-looking about her, even with the gently air she projected. To the left of her was the Allfather, as Thor called him. He looked old, and Tony knew he was Odin Allfather, King of Asgard first, father second.
They were all standing in a straight line facing Fury, a three versus one standoff. Fury looked like he was losing.
Tony swooped down, softly landing fifty feet away. Something about how the royal family was standing seemed important. Seemed to make this…whatever it was, important. His landing barely made a sound, but in weird unison, all three heads of royalty snapped in his direction.
Tony's eyebrow rose, even as his helmet receded into his body. He came to a stop about the same distance away from both parties.
Fury glared at him. "Stark." Tony didn't have the patience for his crap. "Why the hell am I here?" he snapped. How could one eye glare at so many different intensities, Tony wasn't sure. He practically growled, "You have guests."
At that Tony turned his attention to at the three who hadn't stopped staring at him. He addressed his question to Thor. "What's going on, Poptart Princess?" Thor didn't respond, not even to the nickname Tony knew he hated.
The old man answered instead. "Anthony Stark of Midgard."
"Yeah, and you are?" Rude, maybe, but Tony wasn't too concerned. "I am called Odin Allfather, Ruler of Asgard. As is the Æsir way, my family required your audience to thus complete our mourning ceremony."
And it was then that Tony remembered the importance of a past conversation.
Trust me. I have a plan and though it will not last as long as I wish, it will suffice. Have…Tony, have faith in me. Please. You will never be without me.
Tony didn't know if they explained anything to Fury, but he didn't look happy right now. Well, his one eye was twitching and he looked murderous, to put it mildly.
As he rocked back on the heels of his armor, he repeated, "Mourning." Pieces of past conversations floated in his head: families going to benefactors of a deceased to end their mourning, important traditional ceremony, presented by the family head, etc. Tony also remembered that everything, .thing that the deceased owned went to the benefactor, no questions, and something about having privileges within the family. Something on speaking on behalf.
Alright. So this was happening. Right now. Tony straightened up, throwing his shoulders back, stilling his arms at side, and lifted his chin up. Thor smiled, and Tony was taking that as his seal of approval.
"Aye, Anthony Stark. Loki of Asgard is no longer. The deceased had you named benefactor of his. Do you accept?" That was straight to the point. And he was guessing no one filled Fury in beforehand. The look on his face was a cross between spare-your-words-snap-your-neck deadly and, gleeful? Oh. He probably thought he just got the password to everything Loki owned.
Keeping eye contact with Odin, Tony made a fist with his right hand and placed it up above his heart and inclined his head, reciting, "I Anthony Stark, benefactor, hereby accept all that is given by Loki of Asgard, deceased."
He didn't know who looked more surprised. He settled on Odin, inwardly smirking at the flash of frustration that came across his face. Talk about scheming one-eyed bastards. Silently, Odin's left arm came up, open palm up. The other two did the same thing and as soon as Thor's hand was locked in the position his parents' hands were in, their hands started glowing. More like, a ball of sunlight was sitting on each open palm.
Tony remained still, watching as the lights moved up and away from the gods. They spun in a circle, getting closer together until they converged into one enormous ball of light, high above Tony's head. It hovered for a second before it shot down on Tony, who waited for a beat, then snapped his right hand out in front of him. The light slammed into him just as his hand stopped, and Tony inhaled, and smiled.
When the light cleared, Tony had a small black box in his open palm, and not a scratch on him. He had taken the armor off when the light came down on him, so now all eyes were on him and the crumpled Armani suit he had collapsed in bed with.
He brought the box closer to his face and kissed the top, well aware that he was being overly sentimental. Closing his fingers around it, he placed his fist above his heart again. Looking at each of them in the eye, he slowly stated, "Odin Allfather, Lady Frigga, Thor Odinson."
Again, he inclined his head, "With everything that I was, am, and will be, I thank you."
At that, in their weird unison, they closed they open hands and brought them back to their sides. Without pause another light swiftly passed through all of them at once, more golden and soft than the others lights, and dissipated at their fingertips.
"It is final." Thor's ceremony face twisted into his god-on-a-mission face as he stepped out of line. Booming, "Man of Iron, we shall discuss my brother."
Shaking his head, "Sorry Thor, but no." Tony tried to give the stunned thunderer a reassuring smile, "If I want to talk to you about Loki, I'll let you know, alright?" He didn't seem pleased with that, but there was nothing Tony could really do about that.
Before anyone else could say anything, the…Queen, rushed towards him. His eyes widened slightly when he realized that she wasn't stopping. A quick glance at father and son showed that he wasn't the only one surprised by her actions. When she wrapped her arms around him, he didn't know what to do.
After a few awkward seconds, she moved away and literally put herself at arm's length. "Thank you." Were those tears? Shit. He couldn't deal with crying women. She chuckled as she let his arms go, saying, "Fear not Anthony Stark. I will not shed tears on you."
Right.
In the week after the strangest meet the parents ever, Tony had had too many talks with his personal attorenys and only ten glasses of alcohol.
Ten glasses in a week. Progress.
Thor had stuck around, staring at Tony whenever they were in the same room. And apparently he shared with the class because everyone kept looking at him, assessing him. The end of the week saw Tony collapsing on the living room couch, too exhausted to even choose a movie.
Jarvis started one up anyway, and within twenty minutes everyone had crawled out from whatever rock they were under. By the middle of the movie Tony was chewing on Chinese takeout and people had stopped staring at him.
Well, except Thor.
He was musing on how long this was going to continue when a tall, dark haired man strode into the room and Tony could feel the sudden tension at the intrusion.
"Two weeks of hell babe. Two weeks. Do you know how long that is for me?" Tony was not whining. He really wasn't.
The man chuckled, sitting himself on the couch corner closest to him. The others watched, surprised, as Tony dragged himself over to the man, crawled across his legs, and made himself at home in the man's lap.
He leaned back into the man, who wove his arms around the billionaire's waist, resting his hands low on his stomach. They were still watching the two men when the still-stranger kissed Tony's hair and then buried his face in his neck.
Only Thor and Steve, with their more than human hearing, heard what he murmured before he placed another kiss on Tony's neck. "My apologies, love and thank you, for trusting me. You did well, might I add."
No one knew what to call the look on Tony's face at that moment. He was…smiling, a small smile.
They had come to learn that the man had a never ending variety of smiles ready to use at the blink of an eye, but no one knew what this one was. What it meant. And then the man in question blinked, seemed to realize that they had acquired an audience.
He shot them a grin, wide and impossibly genuine. "Guys, meet the man I'm spending the rest of time with."
Well, no. That would be giving too much away.
So, instead, he smirked, and said, "You know, it's rude to stare."
He hoped this worked.
AN: I know this probably made little to no sense, but it's not supposed to make sense right away. There are other parts that need to be included for it all to make sense, and those will come in time.
Thank you for reading.