Full Tilt Divas
Rating: T for violence, profanity, explosions, aliens, sexual innuendo, all that good stuff
Characters/Pairings: Mostly Tony-centric, AU!Loki, AU!Tony Stark, AU!Everybody. Will lean towards Frostiron but will be mild until later on.
Spoilers: Watch the damn movie if you haven't already. References will be made to the prequel films.
Disclaimer: Everything Marvel owns is everything Marvel owns.
Notes: See end of chapter for notes. Enjoy reading!
There were a few things everyone knew about space even if they weren't very educated. One of those was that no matter what people kept feeding to their children simply because it was cute or some other ludicrous justification for taking a step backwards in knowledge enlightenment, the moon was not made of cheese. Another thing was that gravity on the moon and in general space was much lighter than that of Earth. If you were an astronaut and your cable to the shuttle was severed, you'd float aimlessly in space and most likely die there.
These were all facts proven by science. Tony Stark was a man of science, and so the moment he decided to go through the portal that had been opened, a hypothesis had been formed. His expectations of what was going to happen to him were based on these facts.
His expectations fell faster than he did as he crashed into something metal that blared off a car alarm.
The last time Tony checked, you do not fall like that in space (but not because there was no gravity; whoever started that myth should be slapped with a smelly, wet tilapia, and then forced to eat it). And unless mankind finally got off their lazy, incompetent asses and managed to forward through in technology with everything the Jetsons and Star Wars had taught him, there were no cars in space.
Based on these observations, Tony came to the most reasonable and, quite frankly, most pleasing conclusion possible:
This was not space.
The alarm mingled with the familiar wails of sirens and the blasts of explosions actually sounded like a blessing to his ears; not exactly like a choir of angels singing from the heavens above, but it was close. Maybe one of the angels had an Ibanez plugged in and the distortion settings amped up all the way to eleven. Maybe all of them did. Wasn't that hell, though? Relief aside, it did sound like hell.
Groaning as he sat up on top of the car he had just brutally crushed beneath him, Tony opened his eyes as his HUD restarted. "JARVIS, thank God," he groused, trying to shake off his dizziness. "We totally just went through a portal and came back scot-free. Remind me to open up all the expensive stuff I have in the liquor cabinets tonight, we gotta celebrate this. Why is it so dark? We weren't going anywhere near the sun, I told you this."
The AI responded just as dryly as ever.
"You also told me that we were not going to go straight into outer space."
That left a taste that was just a smidgeon too bitter in his mouth.
"Very funny," Tony muttered. He rolled his wrists around. "Switch the anti-UV vision off – oh, and the air conditioner, if you don't mind. My nuts are starting to lose feeling."
"Certainly, sir. Also, your lower reproductive regions appear to be in perfectly healthy condition, if that reassures you."
What greeted Tony's eyes first was something he really wished he wasn't so used to seeing.
This part of New York, which looked close to either a carnival or one of the amusement parks, was in complete shambles. Smoke and ash filled the air from a fire nearby what was once a roller coaster, and a street lamp next to him was broken right in half, the giant bulb's filament still flickering dimly within shattered glass. It seemed like everybody had escaped accordingly based on the lack of anyone around – save for those stupid wasps and damn it he didn't lose them in space?
With a grunt, Tony stood up and jumped off the car, taking flight right away. He was about to ask JARVIS exactly where they were in the city – before something whooshed past him and the wasps were brought down with blue blasts of energy.
Tony blinked. That didn't come from him, but it looked familiar enough to –
Oh. Oh, hell no.
Who was this idiotic moron parading around in the public with the Iron Man Mark VI armour?
How did he even steal it from the goddamn tower and its state-of-the-art security that would make even the Pentagon green with envy?
Speaking of green, who died, rotted, then came back to life, died again, and made this asshole boss of deciding that the Mark VI should be restyled with a green, black and piss yellow paint job?
If Tony had any set idea of was happening, that set idea was reinforced by two very important rules all abided by anyone who was not Tony Stark, and these rules went as followed:
1. You do not touch Tony Stark's stuff.
2. You do not touch Tony Stark's stuff.
And yet here was an individual, some nobody since he was not Tony Stark, who had obviously touched Tony Stark's stuff.
Nope, this would not stand while he was here, charging straight at the imposter with a hand repulsor flexed and ready to fire right about...
There was a swift burst of light from his palm, and Tony watched with more than smug satisfaction as the imposter went reeling off-balance mid-air, crashing straight into a giant truck within the carnival. Upon closer inspection as Tony halted and lowered himself to the pavement, it was a mini-doughnuts truck.
He was tempted to reach for a couple that hadn't touched the ground before there was another flash of light and then a ridiculous amount of pain as Tony toppled to the ground, damaging the asphalt he slid into. New asphalt, he noted as he forced himself up on a knee, trying to shake off the impact and preparing to stand.
A pair of familiar appeared in his vision (except they were green, what the hell). Tony lifted his head, and found himself looking straight into what appeared to be a glowing, cloudy orb within the hand repulsor of his Mark VI armour, trails of blue smoke encircling its green, metal fingers, and fading away into the air as they snaked around its arms.
"You know," Tony began, raising a finger. Then he paused. "Actually, yeah, you know what? I kind of don't mind that. It actually looks pretty neat. Like, 'I wanna figure that out' neat. Not sure about why you had to put the suit on Jenny Craig and slim it down, or give it this really unsavoury palette swap, but whatever, I can deal with that too if I have to." He pointed the finger at the imposter with blue slits glowing from its gold visor plate, and it was only then that Tony noticed he also made some stylistic modifications to the gold visage's features. His voice rose. "What I do mind is why and how the hell do you have MY suit?"
The substance within the Mark VI's palm glowed and swirled dangerously, and the imposter tilted its head to the side curiously. A haughty scoff escaped the figure.
"You will have to excuse me; I fear I do not speak in the language of blatant lies. Or did I hear that correctly? 'Your suit', right? Because this..." He flourished his hand not aimed at Tony towards himself. "Is my armour and mine alone, my dear imposter. Granted, with consideration of this version being the latest model, I will admit to not being fully adept just yet, but it's enough that I can certainly cause enough damage to this..." His hand waved dismissively towards Tony. "This lackluster, McDonalds-coloured copy you dare claim as your ingenuity's caliber."
Now Tony was on his feet, and his hand repulsor levelled itself right at his newfound enemy's other repulsor.
"Well, you're just in luck, because this 'lackluster, McDonalds-coloured copy' you're looking at is also my latest model. I'd be glad to sit down with you over a cup of coffee in jail or something, especially if I want to sue you for every dime you have while discussing the mechanics of it and why yours in comparison sucks. Or, better yet, I could give you a live demo. What do you say?"
The repulsor on the green Mark VI pulsed dangerously again, and a few tendrils of smoke leaked from it. The imposter lowered his head. "I say that your vision is blind in more ways than one," he responded. "Don't you think so?"
The threatening intent dripping from his synthesized, accented voice (and Tony swore he'd heard this voice before, but from where?) did nothing to faze the red and gold Iron Man. The green one began to step sideways; Tony followed the action almost automatically, and soon enough, both Iron Men were both walking a circular path of caution, an arm outstretched as a defensive and offensive gesture.
The impersonator chuckled. "You know, I must congratulate you. As of now, this looks like the closest in regards of craftsmanship and aesthetics that any person has gotten for replicating this technology – even if I do freely believe that colour choice is a little lacking despite being quite stylish and obviously picked for attention appeal, as is how McDonalds branding works. And really, it is people like you who burden my job with more difficulties than my job should be burdened with."
"Oh, and what job would that be?" Tony shot back, his eye-roll concealed behind his visor. "Being a poser?"
Before the imposter could say anything (or perhaps, fire based on how brilliantly the thing set in his palm glowed), there was a large shadow that suddenly loomed over them.
Both heads looked up in unison to see a particularly heavy-looking, menacing carousel horse spinning straight towards them.
The imposter spun right around and was prepared to fire towards it, but at that moment was tackled down by one of the wasps it had been chasing before. Tony took advantage of this moment to dive out of the way, just as the horse flew straight into Green Poser Guy and the wasp. He stared at the two figures sprawled onto the ground, both dazed, and was about to jab two fingers at them and exclaim "HA!" when he suddenly found himself pounced on and then pummeled by something that was shredding metal off his armour.
"Well, this is new!" Tony exclaimed, watching his HUD flicker and flash red for immediate danger. "JARVIS, what the hell's riding my back?"
"Sir, it appears that a larger version of the unidentified creatures resembling wasps are attempting to tear your suit apart," was the ever-so-straightforward response, and an image popped up of a rather...oh, oh God, that would certainly count as a larger (and uglier) version of those wasp-creature things (and was it just him, or did it kind of look like a dragon too?) trying to claw its way into his back repulsors.
Thrusters were reactivated as Tony was back in the air, attempting to throw off whatever was gripping onto his back and compromising his suit. He cursed and reached behind him, ignoring JARVIS explaining how various parts of everything were beginning to go offline, and managed to grab onto some limb of the alien. Without a second thought, he fired from his repulsor.
The satisfying alien screech he heard was enough to make up for the failure of his back repulsors and falling into the truck, carousel horse, and doughnut remains underneath him. Shoving aside the horse (unicorn, actually, and it was blue and stupid-looking and completely impractical, who would ever dye their horse's hair every colour of the rainbow), Tony sat up. He placed both hands to his damaged helmet and pulled it off, gulping a deep breath of air in before he surveyed his surroundings.
Those weird alien creature things looked like they had finally vanished. The carnival grounds were completely wrecked, and the only people there were a few dozen firemen, police men, and SHIELD agents.
Tony's lips pressed together in a thin line. New York City always got the worst of everything.
There was another alien screech from behind him, intermingled with what sounded like a few off-sounding energy combustion noises unfamiliar to how Tony knew the Mark VI's repulsors sounded like. It still made Tony freeze when he heard the pulsating of Green Poser Guy's suit charging.
"You'll do well not to make any sudden moves, imposter, unless you'd like your likeliness to transform to the likeliness of incinerated ashes," that coy, conniving, accented voice drawled, no longer being phased by any voice modifiers and fully recognizable to Tony now.
Except that…that wouldn't make any sense.
No. No way.
Because the only face that voice clicked right into place with was the smirk of a dark-haired, pale-skinned, green-eyed immortal asshole who had thrown him out of a window of his own personal, 1000 feet-high snazzy tower the last time they had bantered. And the last thing that Tony wanted to find, as he turned around slowly, was that guy's head in some poor knockoff of his Mark VI armour.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what he saw – save for finally getting a decent haircut and growing out some scruff – a dark-haired, pale-skinned, green-eyed immortal asshole's face who, strangely enough, looked just as shocked and somewhat disgusted as he probably did. His sharp, unnerving glare narrowed, though confusion was still very evident.
"Anthony?" the man hissed. "Would you be willing to explain to me just what the hell are you doing in my suit?"
Tony blinked for at least two seconds, trying to process the image in front of him as gears pushed against each other to even grind and just not stop turning because none of this makes any sense and oh God it's you again what the hell are you doing here I thought He-Man took you back to Planet Norse so why are you here and what the hell do I do?
He settled for simply letting out a groan and raised his own hand again, hand repulsor aimed to hand repulsor. "Y'know, 'Tony' works perfectly fine. But I think that question is something I probably should be asking you, Loki."
The God of Mischief sneered, and that definitely looked more like the crazy brother of Thor that Tony recognized.
"I would rather not give the satisfaction of answering to you."
"Oh?" An eyebrow arched on Tony's face. "Oh, well, now that's just rude. Doth thy mother teacheth her child how to speaketh to thou whom art more awesometh than thee?"
Loki's lips pressed together tightly, and he raised his chin in such a manner that it oozed and leaked self-confidence.
"Villain, I have done thy mother," he purred.
Tony's repulsor whirred as its glow brightened considerably.
"Alright, Shakespeare in My Suit, let's make something clear in case Barton didn't brief you on it while you had him under your control. If your name is not Tony Edward Stark, then you are not allowed to even leave a smudge with the tips of your greasy, bony fingers on whatever belongs to Tony Edward Stark."
It was Loki's turn to arc an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, but Tony's palm became a finger just for a second. "Uh uh, no, I am not done talking here. Now, we all know that you've done a whole load of shit that you probably can't clean up, even if you really wanted to clean up after yourself. I don't see that happening anytime soon considering you should have gone back to Space Valhalla or whatever and then they do that thing with the lips and the snake and – okay, that's making me feel kinda sick. Asgard has some screwed-up stuff, and you must really hate it just as much as everything else. But I'd say stealing my suit voids any chance of redemption for you."
"What are you going on about, Stark?" Loki growled.
"I'm going on about how I am going to show you how much it sucks to be you," Tony responded just as threateningly. "Doom tried stealing my stuff before, and it didn't work. Barely, he almost compromised everything, but the only way he's ever getting to touch my stuff again is if we switch bodies. You on the other hand – what do you know about technology? What do you know about our petty and plebeian Earth technology when they do science a little differently in Asgard?"
Loki actually looked surprised for a second. The laugh that came out of his mouth was short and sharp.
"You've gone mad," he breathed.
Tony smirked.
"At this point, there's really only one way to settle this like the civil, diplomatic gentlemen we are, isn't there?"
Whatever Loki was using for his laser emitters began throbbing steadily with light, the cloudiness within the glass shimmering as it practically hissed and whistled.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," the deity seethed.
They fired.
The blast that resulted managed to cause enough shockwave to knock over any remaining lamp posts still standing within the vicinity, break any windows and windshields from the cars in proximity of the two, and a broken fire hydrant began spewing water. Tony gasped as he sat up, trying to blink his vision back and damn it, where was his helmet? When will he ever learn that shooting one repulsor and shooting another repulsor equate to a product that was far from desirable?
He extended his arm to fire back (wherever Loki was, hopefully wherever his hand was pointing), before he realized how numb it felt. Whatever Loki was using to energize his suit would require some tinkering around with in the labs once Tony was done with him.
"That was a dirty move!" the engineer shouted amidst the car alarms.
Loki's groan sounded more irritated than pained.
"We both had our visors off, you babbling twit! Unlike yours, however, I have mine within easy access."
There was the sound of another blast, and Tony yelped as he bounced off the pavement and rolled. He grit his teeth as he sat back up, and sure enough, Loki had the visor back on.
"That was a dirty move," the synthesized voice drawled from above him.
Tony's lips curved downward, and he shifted his wrist so that his palm was facing upwards.
The blast that shot out barely missed Loki as he flew left of it, much quicker than the speed Tony had thought the Mark VI was capable of. On his feet now, Tony raised both hands and fired shorter blasts. Loki continued to weave back and forth within the air with ease, before he pointed his fist towards Tony. A slot opened in Loki's wrist, and three glowing projectiles shot out, just barely missing Tony as he dived out of the way. On closer inspection as he looked at them embedded in the ground, they appeared to be knives.
Well, that was new.
"Hey, I have an idea," Tony began as he stood back up, and frowned when his left hand repulsor sparked and stopped glowing. "If you promise not to hit my face, this might work out."
Loki just laughed at him again, much to Tony's irritation.
"What have we to work out, Anthony?" he exclaimed. The god in his suit threw his arms to the side, shaking his head. "Look at the state you are in. Look upon yourself; your creation, if what you delude yourself is true. Not only is it falling apart at your hands, but your hands themselves appear to be falling apart. Your back repulsors are damaged from the alien before, so there is no hope of taking our battle to the skies. Your breath is heavy with fatigue, as much as you try desperately to hide it. And yet, all you can worry about is your face?" He chuckled again. "How narcissistic. It's so like you. I should not have expected less simply because you – "
He didn't get to finish as a thin, red beam of light shot just past his arm.
Tony couldn't help but grin as he pictured Loki's face behind the visor, staring down at the laser that had actually managed make a large cut within the gauntlet area – and jumped back to avoid Loki's retaliating blast.
When he looked back up, though, three more green Mark VI's stared back at him with their repulsors outstretched.
Okay, that was also new.
Any trace of intimidation was unnoticed as Tony fired a long blast out of both his hands, attempting to take out all of them at once. He only succeeded in taking down one – it had flickered and vanished, before a small metal ball collapsed to the ground and ceased to illuminate.
Doctor Doom had to have helped out Loki or some shit when he escaped from Asgard. This was the only reasonable explanation.
The shoulders of the Mark VII slid back, and the heat-seeking projectiles were deployed upwards. They all zoomed past the other Loki's (and Tony caught the shimmer of a hologram in each one that was bypassed) towards the Loki furthest to the left. While Loki was certainly fast and had increased his thrusters just enough to turn around and open his palms, it was not enough speed to outrun the tiny little things as they exploded promptly upon impact. Loki spiralled to the ground with a cry, crashing straight into the ground.
The impact shook the area around them, which was surprisingly considering at the altitude he was at calculated with the velocity of his fall, that should not have happened. Maybe Asgardians weighed more than humans, as much as that did not make sense. Tony took this time to place his helmet back on as he walked towards the sizzling heap. He placed a foot right over the dully-glowing triangle of the green chestplate, and held up the only working hand repulsor he had at Loki's head.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that, God of Bullshit," he remarked. "Now, I promise not to hit your face if you be a good little boy and stay right where you are while I call your brother. JARVIS?"
"Sir, it appears Thor cannot be reached."
Tony froze.
"What is your major malfunction, JARVIS?"
"I can assure you that I am being most serious here and not malfunctioning." Thor's face appeared in the side of his screen, and CALL FAILED appeared in red underneath his mugshot.
Tony sighed. "Alright, well, it's Thor," he muttered, ignoring Loki's head lifting up at his brother's name being mentioned. "It took him forever to learn the basic concept of a calculator, so whatever, call – "
"It is not just Thor, sir. All the Avengers are unavailable."
Every of their photos appeared next; Steve, Bruce, Natasha, Clint. Also illuminated in red, and CALL FAILED captioning each one.
"Director Nicholas Fury and SHIELD are also unavailable."
The eye-patched director's steely stare, Agent Hill's stoic visage, and one other agent Tony should really delete from his contacts popped up.
"What about Richards?" he said.
Four photos popped up red.
"Howlett? Summers? Anybody from the band of freaks?"
A good number of photos popped up red.
"Screw it," Tony snapped. "Call every single person on my contacts list and everybody you've ever recorded me calling. Call the pizza place, call a taxi, call the tower, call the lingerie models I had over there yesterday, call everybody!"
The photos scrolled across the HUD, growing smaller and smaller until they were probably only 40x60 pixel thumbnails filling the interface.
Each and every single one of thumbnails were lit with red.
"I am sorry, sir," JARVIS said when Tony did not say anything, and it meant more to the engineer than he would admit to the clever, supportive artificial intelligence.
"It's beyond me why this is happening. We're not out-of-area, we're in New York, phone systems work universally – wait, universal number." Tony's eyes lit up. "Three digits, all uniform throughout almost every country in the world. We can get through SHIELD by contacting the popo first. JARVIS – "
The ground suddenly shook again, and Tony froze as he looked down at Loki, who was still under his foot and staring straight ahead of him.
"Dude, if you're starting Ragnarok, I'm gonna have to ask you to stop right now. What would Thor say?"
There was a rather loud grunt from behind him, and only then did Tony realize that there was a giant shadow looming over them.
Of course the Hulk would want to come back to smash Loki up a second time when he stole any of Tony's stuff; Bruce and him were brethren of science, and they appreciated each other's contributions and research. Most of the time. Good man, Bruce. However, Thor would probably change the Norse prophecies and bring down Ragnarok himself if they killed Loki. Tony turned his head around to face his friend...
Only to suddenly have a giant fist slam his body into the ground.
Gasping and coughing as he popped open his mask's visor, Tony stared up towards his blurring surroundings as his heart hammered furiously. He could faintly hear the sound of a helicopter, and this was confirmed when a light shone straight into his face. He could hear the Hulk stomping towards him, just make out the gigantic silhouette looming over him, hair blowing as the helicopter was landing, and Tony forced himself to speak, despite his chest hurting severely and the taste of copper at his tongue.
"Bruce...it's me..."
He saw another silhouette, glinting off light from its armour. He knew this one was Loki, most likely sneering down at him from the visor, the visor of the armour he stole from him, that he absolutely defiled and vandalized with his sorcery, and damn it, none of this was fair, and why did Bruce...
"When...did you grow your hair..." Tony rasped, just before everything was consumed by black.
So, where do I start off beginning to explain what's going on here?
This fic is based off a set of role reversal Loki and Iron Man swaps in the form of art, fanfics, and photomanipulations that have been floating around the internet. I had this idea, though; rather than just have an alternate universe, what if somebody from the main universe got thrown into that alternate universe?
If you'd like to see some of the concepts from what appears in this fic (and will appear in this fic) in physical form, search the "Full Tilt Divas" tag on Tumblr and you should find something. I'd also like to thank everybody aboard the S.S. Frostiron who are brilliant writers, artists, and GIF/Photoshop makers for inspiring me, and in particular seizure7, who drew some wonderful concept art of the role reversal during its early inception when Hella suggested it.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I've got you on board!