Notes: Hey guys! I know it's not Saturday, but I wanted to put a little more of this up so it's worth reading.


Chapter 2: Who are you?


Tony lost track of time as he sketched designs for a new Iron Man suit. Not that he really needed it. None of the avengers or SHIELD had contacted him lately. A month or so ago, Nick Fury had told him he had serious issues and needed to get help. He half believed him. Which meant it wasn't surprising that he hadn't heard from them. He wasn't dependable. He couldn't be counted on for much of anything lately. Fury and Natasha Romanov, AKA the Black Widow, knew his destructive tendencies well enough after the escapade with the palladium poisoning. To put it simply, he wasn't to be trusted in his current state of mind.

It was well into the morning when Pepper showed up in the workshop. Tony was going to have some words with Jarvis later for letting her in.

"Tony, I really think you should see a psychiatrist. You aren't yourself lately." She said, distracting him from the seam he was carefully welding along the edge of what would be the casing for a new helmet. Heartbreaker. That's what he was calling this one. Thanks for the inspiration, Peps.

"I'm fine." Tony snapped, mostly ignoring her. "Don't you have a board meeting, or a press conference, or an interview... Or some other public relations, ass-kissing bullshit you should be doing right now?" He added venomously. He wasn't angry at Pepper. He was angry at himself. But with nothing to project that onto, he didn't really know what to do other than lash out at anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. Which was usually Pepper and sometimes Rhodey.

"You're obviously not, but I'm not in the mood to argue. Fury has been trying to call you all morning. You need to go to New York. You might as well check on Stark Tower, I heard that the repairs are complete." Pepper explained. She looked like she'd been hung out to dry and put away wet. Her usually immaculate appearance was rather disheveled. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail and the reddish locks looked rather frizzy. Even her clothes looked a little wrinkled, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Tony tried not to feel guilty, knowing it was his fault she was in such a state.

"Why? Did he say?" Tony asked nonchalantly. He didn't want to deal with SHIELD. He didn't need the avengers and their do-gooder morals right now. He needed to dig himself out of the hole he was in, and he didn't want their help. It was childish, but he just didn't want to go and they'd have to drag him out of his workshop kicking and screaming.

"I don't know." Pepper replied tartly. "I'll get you on a plane. You have an hour to get your stuff packed. No arguments." She added and left, but not without glaring at him like an angry mother hen.

So much for being dragged out kicking and screaming.

It took him ten minutes to pack some necessities. He didn't bother with toiletries. All of that was at Stark Tower and it would be a pain in the ass to get through the airport security anyway. He would have just flown there in the Iron Man suit if Loki's stupid Chitauri nonsense hadn't totaled the last one. The Mark III was still functional, but in desperate need of repairs. There was also the Mark 42, but it had a few bugs to be worked out before it was safe to use. As an afterthought, he shoved the hand drawn plans for the heartbreaker into his carry-on just in case. Tony also had Jarvis upload them to his private secure server so he access them once he got to New York. He could work on it there. Maybe it would be a good thing. Pepper wouldn't be there to hound him and maybe he could get over her without having to see her face around every corner. Or it could be worse without her around at all, but he didn't want to think about that.

The flight to New York was uneventful; it was just a commuter plane full of corporate employees. Pepper must have been really pissed at him to make him fly coach, considering he own his own goddamned private jet. Well, it was uneventful until he saw the flight attendant. He was about to order a martini, but choked on his words as his eyes fell upon a perfectly formed pair of breasts with a small gold disk hanging on a thin chain between them. He looked to her face and met deep green eyes as dark and mysteriously alluring as an emerald. Still, her face was different from the girl at the coffee shop and her features were softer than the one at the club.

"A martini, extra olives." Tony ground out and watched her as she strode away to fill his order. What the hell was going on? Now he had to be going crazy.

"Here you are, sir." She said and handed him the drink. It was then that it clicked, all the pieces lined up neatly in Tony's mind. Her voice sounded exactly the same as the other two women. Either he was going batshit, or the government was dabbling in cloning. ...Not that he would hold it against them when they could create something that perfect. Who wouldn't want to play God if they could have an army of hot girls waiting on them? Huh, where do I order a few of those?

He stroked his neatly trimmed goatee for a moment while he considered his options.

"So, who are you, really?" Tony asked seriously, curious what the reaction would be. Her perfect lips twitched into a faint smile.

"You are better off not knowing, Stark." She replied and walked away. Tony didn't catch so much as a glance of her for the rest of the flight. He couldn't help but swear in frustration under his breath as he disembarked at the airport. What did she mean he was better off not knowing? Did that mean that all three women were the same person? No, that was impossible. What was he doing thinking up nonsense like that? He hadn't even been drinking. Yet. Well, there was the martini, but one martini was not enough to get Tony Stark tipsy.

It turned out that Fury had not needed him at all. Well, he did, but Tony was useless without one of his suits. Instead, he sat in the empty meeting room on the helicarrier watching live footage of Captain America and Thor beat the absolute shit out of venom near Central Park. Wait. Isn't that Spider Man's job? Or is he too busy angsting somewhere? Tony leaned back in his chair and fidgeted in boredom. This room wasn't any more interesting than the conference room at Stark Industries.

He thought SHIELD could make a killing marketing the footage as some kind of niche porn. Rogers was being wrapped up in Venom's nasty black tendrils and was squirming like a bug trapped in a jar.

"Tentacle porn." Tony observed astutely and shut the monitor off. He left without a word to Fury who was waiting outside. He managed to get Coulson to fly him back to Manhattan and he went straight to Stark Tower. He didn't talk to Phil much. He had nothing to say. He knew Phil and Pepper were thinking about dating. Good for them. Maybe he could give her what Tony couldn't. But Tony wouldn't just let it go without being a little petty about it. In a sick, twisted and jealous way, he kind of wished Loki had killed the SHIELD agent. Maybe then he wouldn't be taking Pepper away from him. ...Even if the failure of their relationship was entirely Tony's fault and ended well before Agent Asshole swooped in to save the day.

In the end, he skipped dinner and worked through most of the night on the new Heartbreaker suit in the basement of Stark Tower. He decided to call it a night around three in the morning when his grip on the welding torch slipped and he burnt his left forearm. It didn't bother him much, he'd gotten used to that sort of thing after years of working himself into a coma. Absently, he dug some burn ointment out of a first aid kit in the shop and spread a decent amount of it on the burnt skin. It would be all blisters in the morning. Whatever. He heaved a miserable sigh and rode the elevator to his penthouse.

Still in his clothes, he flopped down on the bed and dragged the covers over himself. He needed sleep, desperately. He knew that, but with sleep came the nightmares. But it was just as he started to pass out from exhaustion, that his cellphone rang, jarring him back to consciousness.


Living in Midgard was hellish. The humans lacked any sense of refinement. Maybe it would have been different if he didn't choose a female form. If Loki had learned anything since leaving Asgard on a frankly hopeless quest to redeem himself, it was that men were pigs. Both Mortals and Aesir alike.

All of them.

Except Tony Stark.

Granted, Stark was a notorious womanizer and an absolute whore. But at least he had some decency. He looked, but he didn't touch. ...Not without permission, anyway.

Naturally, Loki couldn't just run around in his normal form – he would be recognized. Not even Thor knew about his current arrangement, and it needed to stay that way. So, he floated between being a few vaguely similar women. He spent a few miserable days living under a bench in central park before he first took on one of the female forms and got a job as a waitress in a small cafe. It was humiliating. It was no better than base servitude, but it was necessary in order afford food and a place to sleep.

At least he still had his magic. Or she. Whatever. Loki generally referred to himself as male, but the concept of clearly defined gender was something that he saw as petty and below him.

It was his third week as a waitress that he first saw Stark. Incidentally, it was also a month after the failed Chitauri invasion. Stark was with a woman who had reddish hair. She was dressed in a smart business suit and seemed very much a strong, dominate female. ...Not unlike the aura Loki seemed to exude in a female form. Loki had eavesdropped on the conversation, she couldn't help herself.

"Tony, I can't do this anymore." Loki heard her say from where she hid behind the edge of a doorway near the booth they were seated at. Stark seemed to fidget a bit, his clothing snagging on the cheap fake red velvet of the seat.

"Pepper, baby-" He began, running his fingers through his dark brown hair making it look even more disheveled than it already did. A break-up it would seem... Loki mused, shoving her hands into the pockets of her filthy pink apron.

"Enough. I'm done Tony. This whole superhero thing is too much for me. And... I don't even see you anymore. You just stay in your workshop all day like the rest of the world doesn't even matter. I try to get closer to you, but you push me away." She ranted, cutting him off mid-sentence. There were tears pouring down her face as she spoke. Loki rolled her eyes. Typical. Just another woman who expected the man she had her sights set on to change who he was to better suit her own wants.

"No. I wasn't pushing you away! You want me, but you don't want me the way I am. Sorry Peps. But I guess you're right. I don't deserve you anyway. You always were too good for me." Stark replied, oddly composed. "Just don't quit being my CEO, please. I'm like, literally begging you not to quit." She smiled, promised she wouldn't quit and left him there alone.

Only when he was sure Pepper was gone, Stark bent forward and hid his face in his hands.

Loki had kept tabs on him since.

He didn't know why, but somehow Stark seemed... Broken for lack of a better word. And that didn't feel right. ...Not when it was the same man who made a comment about him having 'performance issues' and stood up to him with no weapons but sarcasm and courage. It could have been plain stupidity for all the demigod knew. Loki wasn't sure why he cared, but he felt like someone had to look after Stark. After all, none of his so-called friends appeared to be particularly bothered by his odd behavior.

All right, he felt a little bit bad about throwing him through the window.

Or maybe it was just the loneliness that he could relate to.

Never mind, Loki really had no idea why he cared about Stark – he still loathed him. He was obnoxious as ever. Maybe he just wanted to kill him last, or something equally dramatic.