Chapter Two

Sands of Time

Location: Unknown

The first thing he noticed besides his stiff muscles was a low humming sound coming from all around him. It sounded electrical, a generator or an engine maybe. He opened his eyes and quickly shut it again as the light, albeit not so bright, kind of hurt. He squinted and tried to sit up. He was lying on what must have been the hardest, most uncomfortable bed in existence. And his hands were chained, awesome. He took a few deep breaths, not at all happy about the fact that he was out of breath immediately, without moving, what the hell? He managed to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. All his muscles were stiff and aching and he felt too weak. Now that his eyes finally started to adjust to the light and his vision cleared out he froze at the sight that greeted him.

Loki sat on a bed that was exactly like Tony's on the other side of the grey room. He was chained too, Tony couldn't decide whether to be glad about that or not, but for now he counted it as a good thing. He was without most of his armour, which made him look more slender, but not less threatening. The previous events rushed back into his mind and he was surprised that Loki's face had almost no trace of the beating, must be nice to heal so quickly. Tony was too numb to assess his own injuries; he didn't feel like he was dying, everything else could wait.

'Come here often?' Tony asked, then he cleared his throat. His voice was scratchy and his mouth really dry. Just how long was he unconscious? Loki glanced at him, but didn't deign him with an answer, not that Tony expected any.

'Where are we?' he asked then, but got no answer again. 'Trust me I have no problem with listening to the sound of my own voice,' he said. Loki sighed, seemingly in annoyance.

'I do not know,' he said.

'Okay, then care to tell me who your friends were?'

'They are hardly my friends.'

'No kidding, who are they? I mean, yeah I can imagine you pissing off people all over the place, but aren't you supposed to be locked up in a nice cosy dungeon in Asgard?'

Loki stayed quiet for a little while, visibly contemplating whether he wanted to waste his breath talking to the human.

'It does not matter who they are, they were hired to capture me.'

'Well thanks for leading them into my tower, asshole,' Tony snapped. 'This is exactly how I planned my night to go,' he said while he raised and tugged on his chains.

Loki scowled at him. 'I need not explain myself to you, mortal.'

'You got me into this mess in the first place!'

'No, that was you when you destroyed the Chitauri ship!'

Tony snapped his mouth shut in surprise and blinked at Loki.

'How the hell would they know it was me?!' he asked. Then it clicked and cold anger started to burn deep in his gut. 'You told them, right?'

Loki just scoffed. 'I would have, but there was no need. That device in your chest makes you very easily recognizable and they saw enough through me to know where to find you.'

Tony thought about that for a second. 'No, that's bullshit. Whatever you did with that mirror, you came through first, you led them to me!'

'Like I said, I need not explain myself to you.'

They sat in silence for a few moments, Tony looked at his chains, but it didn't look like he could get out of them. The room looked equally hopeless in regards of an escape, but that didn't stop him from searching.

Loki huffed and Tony raised his eyebrows when he looked back at him.

'Something funny Reindeer Games?' he asked.

'The fact that you truly believe that you have anywhere to go if you escape this room,' the god told him. Tony just looked at him for a second before it dawned on him what he was talking about.

'We're not on Earth anymore, are we?'

'No.'

'But you don't know where?'

'I will, once we get there,' Loki stated simply.

'There? We're…' he looked around again. It didn't feel like they were moving, which meant that whatever kind of vehicle this was, it had to be big. 'So this is…' he prompted.

'A ship,' came the curt answer.

'A space ship?' Tony asked, Loki answered with an annoyed look, right, space ship, perfectly normal. Hell, he fought against Loki's army, he should not be surprised about stuff like this anymore.

'I really hate asking this, but… what are they going to do to us?' Loki let out that sound again, that was somewhere between a huff and a very unhappy laugh.

'Death… eventually.'

He really didn't need that to be elaborated.

'And you really just plan to sit there and do nothing?'

'You already saw how my last escape attempt ended,' Loki replied. 'There's nowhere to go from here.'

'No,' Tony replied immediately. 'I'm not going to sit around and give up.'

'Oh, then pray tell, what will you do once you get rid of your almost indestructible chains and flee out of this heavily reinforced room that only opens from the outside?'

Tony gritted his teeth. 'I don't know… yet. We can't be that far away from Earth yet, there has to be… something.'

Loki literally rolled his eyes at him this time. Tony wanted to strangle him with his chains. After taking a deep breath the Aesir looked at him again.

'I suppose it is better if I tell you, before you do something reckless that might endanger any of my future plans.'

'Tell me what?'

'What do you think how long have you been asleep?' The question was unexpected.

'Uhh… few hours?' Tony guessed.

'Oh you mortals and your pathetically limited perception,' Loki commented. 'Can't you feel it? That something's not right? Your muscles feel too tired, your lungs too tight, your throat too dry?'

Tony kept staring at the god, not liking what he was hearing.

'A few days?' Tony asked then. 'It can't be more.'

'Yes, it can. If it was magically induced,' Loki answered simply. 'In this case, it's hard to tell… I was unconscious myself, but the lingering effects are too strong to ignore.'

'How long?' Tony asked with a harsher tone.

'At least a few weeks, but months seem more likely.'

A heavy silence followed the words, only the low buzzing hum disturbing it. Tony started at the other for long moments.

'That's not possible.' Loki just did an almost eye roll and leaned back on the wall. 'No, it's not possible. I would've died of thirst… or hunger… I don't even have a longer stubble… it's not possible!'

'I assure you, it is. Since this was something strong enough to keep even me under, I'd say it had to be a mixture between magical and alchemical methods.'

'But…'

'I tire of giving you explanations. They simply "stopped" our bodies, that is the simplest way to put it. Common practice when it comes to important "living goods". No need for sustenance and they can be sure that we still live by the end of the journey.'

Tony leaned back to the cold wall and let that sink in. Weeks, maybe even months. Loki had to be lying, right? That just didn't sound possible, even if the weakness in his muscles and his too dry throat said otherwise. He wouldn't feel this way if he was only unconscious for a few hours, but there could be other explanations for that. On the off chance Loki was telling the truth, it meant that he's vanished from the face of Earth maybe months ago. No, he didn't let himself think about it. Pepper, god fucking dammit!

'Why am I awake now then?' he asked numbly, his mind running as fast as possible thinking over all possibilities. He also hoped to catch a lie, because there was a big chance for that. He would be crazy to take anything at face value with Loki.

'Well, we must be close to our destination of course.'

'You seem to be way too relaxed for someone who's being shipped into their death.'

'Death? Oh no Iron Man, Death is mercy, Death is a generous gift, Death is the freedom we will beg to recieve. We do not have such great prospects. Eventually, yes, but that can be in the very distant future.'

Now that Tony looked at the god again he noticed that the indifference was nothing more than a very good mask. He had no idea what was actually going through his crazy head. His face was carefully blank, deliberately hiding what he was feeling. Not wanting to display any weakness. That made sense, who would want to give such an advantage to their enemy. Then he realized that there was one question he forgot to ask so far.

'So who are they taking us to?'

'To someone who promised I would long for something sweet as pain.'

x-x-x

The next few hours (or what Tony guessed were a few hours) they spent in absolute silence. Not like Tony wanted to converse with the bastard, and he doubted that he could get more useful information out of him either, so that worked out splendidly. His mind was racing with possibilities, while he did his best to not drive himself into a frenzy because of what was coming. It was easy to understand from Loki's words what awaited them, if he was telling the truth that is. Tony could swear the reactor in his chest was aching, the scars around it burning like in those first few days. The worst possible déjà vu, but he refused to give up just yet. He doubted Loki gave up either, but he could not count on whatever the god was planning. He would leave Tony with their captors without a blink, or he would even do it with a smile on his damn face. Maybe he would even use him to escape himself. He had to keep an eye on him.

He was also thinking about the others. Pepper, Rhodey, SHIELD. If he really was gone for weeks, or months – months dammit, fucking damn it to hell – then it meant that a lot of people were looking for him. Well they couldn't find him in a fucking Afghan cave, how would they find him who knows where how far away from Earth… on an alien spaceship… in space!

The silence was disturbed by a sharp clink coming from the door that made both of them look up. Tony tensed, he saw from the corner of his eye that Loki did too, but the Aesir managed to relax his pose a second later. The damn good actor he was. Tony did the same, although it was a bit harder to appear completely relaxed in this situation, but he managed. Spit danger in the face, and all that.

The heavy door opened and Tony recognized the alien that smashed in Loki's face, he had a large scar on his head and one of his eyes was indeed missing, but it was not a fresh wound, but something completely scarred over. That did seem to confirm Loki's words about how much time passed. Unless these aliens healed a lot faster, which was also plausible, but of course if they healed faster the wound wouldn't have scarred in such an ugly way. Fucking aliens.

The scarred one took a few steps closer to Tony while another one stood at the door with a big-ass gun aimed at Loki. They did not underestimate him. Loki just kept a cold gaze locked on the creatures and remained silent. The scarred one started talking and gestured at Tony's chest. The engineer raised an eyebrow.

'Sorry pal, I don't speak space gibberish.'

The alien stared at him with one angry orange eye before he turned to Loki and spoke again, gesturing at Tony. Loki held the creature's gaze defiantly for a moment.

'What does the device in your chest do?' Loki asked then. Yeah, Tony had a hunch that was what the alien was on about.

'It's none of his damn business,' Tony replied.

Loki waited a moment, then with an impassive tone he said, 'You need not know.'

The creature growled, understanding, which made Tony frown, but he was too preoccupied to think about it right now. The alien said something in a louder tone.

'He's threatening you… not too creatively,' Loki said in a way of translating. Tony stared back with his best devil may care unimpressed look. The creature then strode closer and grabbed him by his t-shirt, pulling him a little up. He growled something in his face again.

'Is it a weapon?' Loki asked in a pleasant voice.

Tony kept his mouth shut, but the alien didn't have any patience so it seemed, nor was he in the mood for any games either. Because the next thing Tony knew his t-shirt was torn and a big hand was going for his arc reactor. He tried to get away, fighting him, but the chains didn't give him too much room to move and his muscles still felt stiff and tired, not to mention that the creature was way stronger than him. When the alien finally managed to pin him down and had his hand on the reactor Tony was sure he had nothing to lose.

'It keeps me alive!' he blurted out.

'It keeps him alive,' Loki repeated. The alien tossed Tony back down in reaction and left the reactor in. He grunted something then and they moved closer to Loki, who stood up, but did not put up a fight as he was chained even more. Maybe the gun aiming at his face was the reason for that. After Loki was securely tied up, they unhooked him from the wall. Then the one-eyed one walked back to Tony. They didn't chain him up like Loki, but he was obviously not that much of a threat either. They dragged them out of the room, Loki first, so that he was walking between the two big creatures, Tony merely getting pulled along after them. At least they didn't pay that much attention to him, which had possibilities.

They walked on dark corridors for quite a while, without a word. Then they finally reached a door. It led to a glass passageway with another door at the end of it. When they walked out Tony immediately looked around and his breath escaped him in a rush. He would've stopped if not for the brute tugging him along. He felt, more than saw that Loki indeed stopped walking for a moment, and that their captors had to shove at him to keep moving again. Maybe even he didn't expect the view outside. Said view was a completely barren land and the clear sky, well more like open space all around them, and something Tony only ever saw on super high resolution telescope images.

'Is that a galaxy?' he asked. It looked like one, the spiral kind, which was really not good, because how fucking far away were they from Earth then? It was large, large enough that it covered most of the view beyond the barred land around them.

'Andromeda,' Loki spat out, definitely not pleased about it.

Tony sucked in another breath, his insides freezing up all over again. No wonder it looked familiar. Andromeda being this close to them they had to be… at least 2,5 milion light-years away from Earth.

Oh… Fuck.

x-x-x