6. "'Cause it's time to bring the fire down. Bridle all this indiscretion, long enough to edify, and permanently fill this hollow."

A sword bathed in black flames, forged deepest in the fires of a shadow realm, a realm in which light itself fears to tread. The very essence of darkness, of evil. Ancient power passed from ruined hand to ruined hand, a succession of broken kings and madmen who exist only to defile that which the rest of the universe would call good, would call pure.

Eternal darkness in the living, breathing heart of the universe.

"Bringer." A whisper from a bloodless mouth, from lips as white as the snow. "We come. We come." The sweet-sick tones of a dying tongue. "Dark-bringer, Child of Winter, you call us. We come. We come."

Clenched-cold fury at the base of his spine like a fist wrapped tight.

This was not supposed to happen.

And Odin's eye – blue, blue as the sky, blue as the sea, Father don't look at me like that, please I can't bear it – on his face, understanding crystallizing into a look of abject, horrified knowledge.

"Loki." Accusation in a broken whisper. Trial and verdict in two symbols.

You did this. You brought this. You made this.

"Brother." And Thor, too, in a voice like the thunder, like the sea, like the raging, rolling sea.

And he knows he's damned them all, doomed them all, condemned them all.

Only he doesn't remember how.

A sword bathed in black flames, lifted by a skeletal hand.

And the rest is war.

Darkness.

Death.

Gasping, every muscle trembling, his scarred wrists on fire, Loki jerks out of the nightmare, the last of a cry – his own mewling, terrified cry – still echoing off the walls. His flesh feels like it wants to crawl right off his bones, and his insides clench and lurch like they're trying to become his outsides.

He sits up, untangling himself from the bedsheets, absently massaging his burning wrists. A touch of healing magic quenches the worst of the fire, but does not banish it entirely.

Neither does it heal the bands of scar tissue.

A dream, he tells himself as his breathing begins to slow. Merely a dream.

Small comfort, that little lie, but he supposes he'll take what comfort he can.

Warning or portent, he's not sure which. Isn't, it happens, terribly interested in pressing that particular sensitive spot any more than he has to, not until he has some idea what in the name of the Nine Realms he is even seeing.

Still exhausted, but no longer interested in attempting sleep, not with late afternoon light seeping in around the edges of his windows, he rises, slips on a loose shirt and trousers, and pads barefoot over to his desk. An open book sits under a small lamp, and the blank pages bob and sway as he sits down, as if entreating him to actually write on them this time instead of sitting with a pen poised above them as he has each of these past few nights.

He picks up an old-fashioned fountain pen and turns it over in his fingers, watching the play of the light on the nib.

It had been his intention to set his thoughts to paper on his escape, to attempt to clear out the clutter and make some sense of the myriad ideas and scattered bits of plans he'd conjured during his incarceration.

Nothing came to hand, though.

At first, he'd chalked it up to exhaustion. After his flight from Asgard and subsequent punishment from the Other, he'd been left with little magical reserve and a broken body, and had had no choice but to allow himself to fall unconscious, to give himself time to heal.

He'd only just begun to heal and build back his reserve when the spike of magical energy had crashed into him. If not for the staff's powerful crystal to give him center, to focus and direct his energies in the most efficient way possible, he would not have been able to tame that – utterly intoxicating – dangerous, unruly dimensional magic.

Even now, even with a few quiet days gone and his magic mostly returned, he still does not feel wholly himself. He has been unable to do more than stare at these blank pages while his thoughts churn slow and uneasy and with no sense of purpose, and why he does not know.

He catches himself rubbing his wrist again, and frowns.

Last night, restless at the lack of any movement from the creature Mephisto and unable to concentrate, he'd succumbed to a fit of sheer boredom and had gone out to speak with the mortal Stark. To warn Stark, or so he'd told himself, but on reflection he doubted Stark or his pathetic Avenger friends needed the warning: trouble was something that seemed to attract them like magnets to metal.

At least his encounter with Stark hadn't been boring.

No, indeed, he'd gotten no end of amusement out of finding Stark in such a reckless and vulnerable state. There had been something absolutely fractured about the man, a desperate sense that he'd broken apart and was holding himself together by just a whisper, and Loki had experienced at least a few moments during their brief encounter where he'd felt himself looking into a dark, distorted mirror.

He hadn't allowed himself to linger on those thoughts, however, and had instead found himself twisting Stark up. It had been fun. Satisfying, too, in a way-

A surge of wild magical energy washes over him like a wave right then, blinding him, its strength enough to almost unseat him,

Rising, eyes wide, all other thoughts swept aside, he summons his armor and staff to him, and transports himself away.

xXx

"Please tell me this is a joke, Tony," is what Steve says.

He's the only one who has said a word since Tony finished his edited-for-content version of Conversations With Loki. "Last night" became "just a little bit ago," and "outside a club" became "on my balcony" and he makes no mention whatsoever of any physical contact.

Because that never happened.

He will take that one with him to his fucking grave.

The team is gathered in the mansion's kitchen, the six of them in a loose circle around the island. Fury is listening in from back at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, having been included at Steve's insistence.

"It's not," Tony says. "No joke, sorry. He was dead serious."

Thor, leaning back on the counter near the sink, looks up from the floor. "Yes," he says. "This is no jest. I should have realized..."

"What?"

"I never seen such 'tears' before," Thor tells them, his voice the quiet rumble of a distant storm, "but I have heard tales of them. What he told you was true."

"You mean that enough of these things could blow up the whole universe," Clint says. He's near the fridge, arms folded across his chest. "Well, that's great. And so next time this happens, we're supposed to, what, just hope Loki shows up? Fuck that."

Bruce, on Tony's right, glances over. "You said he reversed the energy?"

Tony shrugs. "Said he turns it in on itself or something. That's something we could do, you think?"

"I don't know." A little frown cuts a line between his eyebrows. "It would probably be easier to do that. We wouldn't actually have to create any energy. Generating energy was the big problem. But-"

"But if we're just turning it around on itself, then we don't have to worry about that."

"Exactly."

"I believe it would be unwise to try," Thor says, sea blue eyes sweeping both Tony and Bruce in one critical glance. "These tears are extremely dangerous. If your science was wrong by even a little, you could-"

"Bring the end of the universe," Bruce finishes for him. "Right."

"Okay," Steve says from Tony's other side. "So where does that leave us?"

"For my money," Fury puts in, the unexpected sound of his voice causing Tony to jump a little, "any plan that involves us depending on Loki to show up and help is no plan at all. I don't give a fuck what he says.

"But I agree with Thor that we shouldn't fuck around with these 'tears' if we can't be a hundred percent sure we're not gonna make things worse."

"Which leaves us back at square one," Clint says. "I'm not helping that fucker."

"Yeah, we get it, Clint," Tony says. "And you'll be thrilled to know he doesn't want to help us, either. Mostly he just wants us to take care of whatever comes out of the tears, and stay out of his way. Which is pretty much what happened last time, and that worked fine. Kinda. I think the big picture here is more important: you know, not letting the universe get folded in on itself. How we get there – who cares? We can sort it out once we're done."

"Well said, Tony Stark," Thor says, and Bruce says, "I agree," and both Steve and Tasha nod. Clint's just staring at the floor, eyes hooded and shadowed. And Tony understands: getting mind-fucked the way Clint got mind-fucked, well it was apt to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

Still, as weak as this plan is, it's better than nothing.

Fury says, "Well. Never thought I'd live to see the day Tony Stark actually said something sensible. Wonders never cease."

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you too," Tony says. "We're done for now. We'll be in touch. End the call, JARVIS."

The line goes dead, and a really awkward silence falls between all of them.

Tony leans forward over the island and props his chin in his hands, just watching, waiting. Funnily enough, everyone is staring at the floor.

He supposes he doesn't blame them: it's a lot to take in.

It's Steve – naturally – who winds up breaking the silence. He glances at Tony, frowns, clears his throat. "So, um. We heard about what happened yesterday. At your – uh, day job." Because of course he's going to bring that up, instead of sticking to the important stuff. "I tried calling. Is everything okay?"

Clint snorts before Tony can even answer. "That's his way of saying 'You look like shit, man. What'd you do, drink yourself to sleep last night?'" He backs away, hands raised defensively, when Tasha turns on him. "All right, all right. I'm sorry. He said it better."

"You probably said it more honestly," Tony mutters, and Jesus, the whole team is just staring at him again. He rubs his forehead – fucking headache is starting to come back – and sighs. "Yeah. Okay, bad day, rough night. But I'm fine. Or I will be. It's not important, and I don't even want to talk about it." He waves that last aside. "Anything come up yesterday I need to know about? Any problems with your rooms? Everything working?"

"Everything is fine," Steve assures him. "Great, actually. Thanks again for letting us stay here."

"Wasn't like I was using it. JARVIS show you guys where the gym and everything is?"

"Yep."

"Good. Great."

Steve stuffs his hands in his pockets, glances around like he's not exactly sure what to say. "So...I guess that's it, then? For now, anyway."

"Yeah," Bruce says. "Guess we hurry up and wait."

"Joy." Clint pushes away from the counter. "I think I'm gonna hit the gym. Anybody up for some sparring? Need to burn off some energy after all that."

"I will join you," Thor says.

"Me too," Steve puts in.

"I'll pass," Bruce says as he shuffles out of the room. "I've got some reading I want to do."

"Tasha?" Clint calls over his shoulder, as he follows Steve and Thor out of the room.

"I'll be down in a second," she tells him. She hovers near the island, fingers ghosting over the shining surface, her expression pensive. "So what really happened?" she asks without really looking at Tony.

She's a master spy and a master interrogator, so of course she would pick up on his bullshit.

"What do you mean?" he asks, because he's not going to give her the satisfaction.

"There was more to the story. With Loki. Something you left out. Did he attack you or something?"

"Nope. But you're right: I did leave something out." He draws a breath. "Loki was rocking this slinky little black dress when he showed up. Sequins and everything, which, it was tacky but he made it work. I just didn't want to say anything because, you know, I don't know how Thor would have taken the news – little brother being a cross-dresser and all."

Tasha's staring, big dark eyes narrowed like she's trying to calculate just how much force she'll need to tear his balls off. "That's not funny," she says. "You're keeping things from us, just like Fury did. Why?"

"Whoa, whoa, hey now, missy! Them's fighting words." Or they would be if he wasn't sure she'd kick his ass three times before he could throw a punch. "I don't keep important things from people. What I keep from people are stupid, insignificant things that don't matter. Especially when they don't matter."

Which, okay, technically isn't really true there was that whole 'I'm dying' thing he kept form Pepper once up one a time – but still. It sounds good.

Good enough for most people, at least, this is Tasha, who has made a genuine art of peeling back people's layers to expose every lie hidden between. She's a real human lie detector, Tasha is, and standing there in her dark pants and tee shirt she looks like somebody whose needles are jumping all over the fucking chart.

Tony shifts, lifts his chin, crosses his arms. Deciding he's just done with this conversation, he says, "It was nothing important. Okay? I promise."

"Hey, Tony?" Bruce calls from the doorway just then. He walks into the kitchen and pulls up short. "Whoa."

Finally breaking eye contact with Tasha, Tony glances over at Bruce. "Yeah, Bruce, what's up?"

Bruce clears his throat. "Is – everything okay in here?"

"Absolutely," Tony says, all too-big grin and false cheer.

To his surprise, Tasha nods, smiles a much more natural smile and says, "Everything's fine, Bruce," as she heads out of the kitchen.

Bruce frowns after her. "You know," he murmurs, "she kind of scares me sometimes."

"Me, too, buddy," Tony admits. "Me too. But at least she's on our side."

"True."

Tony pushes away from the cabinet and turns for the door. "So! You feel like making a trip to the basement?"

Blinking, Bruce turns to follow. "Actually, I was going to see if you'd show me around your lab. But – okay. What for?"

"It's down there, too. And you'll see when we get there." He hangs a left and leads the way to the stairs. "So, you getting settled in okay?"

"So far so good," Bruce replies. "This place is..."

"Gaudy? Huge? A testament to the old man's ego and paranoia?" Tony nods. "I know."

Bruce shrugs and follows Tony down the long staircase. "I was going to say impressive, actually."

"Oh."

"It is pretty huge."

Tony grins. "So I've been told."

Bruce snorts. "And you say your old man had an ego."

"Ha, yeah." Tony looks away, grin slipping. "So, um. Things okay with the other guy, then?"

"As – okay as they ever are , I guess," Bruce replies, a frown in his voice. "He's not going anywhere, but we're...dealing. I guess." There's a pause, and then, quietly, "Did I say something wrong?"

"Hmm? No, no. And – yeah, that's good." Tony flashes a distracted smile over his shoulder. "So I've been thinking. We have three floors underground here. It's not all finished, so if we're gonna use this as headquarters, we could set up spaces for everybody to, you know, work on stuff."

They reach the bottom of the stairs and Tony leads the way down one hall and over to a service elevator. He hesitates, fractionally, before hitting the button – there's just something about the idea of getting into an tiny, confined space with a guy who has a giant, unpredictable rage monster inside that doesn't sit well with him. But it's Bruce there, kindred spirit and all, and Tony refuses to be an asshole.

Bruce has enough problems inside; last thing he needs is idiots making it worse outside.

Once the elevator doors have closed, Bruce glances over and says, "So how long are you going to let it be an elephant in the room?"

Tony leans sideways against the wall. "What?"

"What happened with your company yesterday. Which you're going out of your way not to talk about."

"W-? Oh. That. Well, there's really nothing to say, is there? I'm taking time off to work on other projects. I have those."

"It wasn't a voluntary leave, though, was it?"

"Not exactly." Tony shrugs, shakes his head. "But it's done, so that's it. Nothing I can do about it. And, anyway, it really doesn't have anything to do with any of you guys, so..."

Bruce blinks, a puzzled look in his eyes. "Yeah, but it affects you, and you're part of the team."

Aren't you?

It looks for a second like Bruce wants to say more than that – he draws in a breath like he's going to – but he winds up closing his mouth and looking away.

And this, for some reason, hits Tony funny: an odd little tug in the back of his mind, and a – very, very – small warmth flaring down deep, like a tiny flickering candle in a very dark room. He digs up a tired smile and says, "Well, I guess if there's an upside, I'll be around more."

"That's true," Bruce says with an awkward chuckle. "We'll probably be sick of you in a week."

"A week?" Tony laughs. "If you can last a week with me around, then I'm doing something wrong."

The elevator coasts to a smooth stop, and, still laughing, the two of them step out into a dimly-lit hallway.

The doors haven't even finished closing when JARVIS, patched in through the old intercom system, says, in a quiet, tinny voice, "Sir, Director Fury is on the line. He says it's urgent."

Tony looks at Bruce, who just sighs.

xXx

More energy surges, it turns out. In DC again.

And so, the Avengers assemble.

xXx

Tasha flies them all over in one of the quinjets.

"We've picked up five so far," Fury tells them on the way over, his voice cool and calm despite the apparent gravity of the situation. "Two near the White House, one by the Capitol Building, and the other two by the monuments. All kinds of shit coming out of them, too. More of those fucking green bombs. All kinds of robots. Some kind of big flying thing that's blowing fire all over everything-"

"What, like a dragon?" Tony cuts in.

Because it sounds a lot like a dragon.

"No, Stark. It's not a fucking dragon. Now shut up and listen. We're getting people out as fast as we can, but you're gonna be walking into a shit storm, so be ready. And one other thing, just as a head's up – we've seen Loki twice now. It looks like he's closed down a couple of these fucking things, but every time he shuts one down another one shows up."

Steve glances over at Thor, who looks like he's on the verge of smiling. "What are our orders regarding Loki, sir?"

"Just keep an eye on him, if you can," Fury says. "If you can catch him, fine. Don't waste any time on it. We've got a whole mess of fish to fry down there."

"Understood, sir. Iron Man will be in the air in three minutes, and I'll let you know when the rest of us are on the ground."

"Copy."

The comm goes quiet.

The entire cabin goes quiet, save the engines' hum.

Clint is looking hard at the captain, who is busy pretending to examine his shield.

"What is our plan?" Thor finally asks, deep voice cutting neatly through the tense silence. He has Mjolnir in hand, and, dressed in his polished armor, he just looks like a he belongs out in the middle of a battlefield. Badass warrior, and he's not even trying.

Tony, tucked away in the Iron Man suit, totally doesn't envy him that. Nope. He says, "Cap? I think you're up. Plans?"

Frowning, the captain looks down at his shield again. "Well, there's five of those things. Six of us. I don't necessarily like the idea of splitting everybody up, but we're going to have to try to contain whatever's out there best we can."

"Yeah, splitting us up worked really well last time," Clint says, scowling. "Didn't it, Iron Man?"

Cap's jaw clenches. "If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

"Look, those green things are going to blow shit up no matter what we do to them," Clint points out. "The more we tried to take them out, the more damage they did. So I say we just say fuck it and try to stay out of their way. Deal with the robots or whatever else is flying around out there."

"Keep them away from people as much as possible," Steve says. "That was pretty much my idea. But you're right – let's avoid the bombs. Just focus on the things we can do something about. Clint, you stay with Tasha. I'll stay with Thor. And-"

"And that leaves me and the big guy," Tony says, glancing at Bruce. Bruce is sitting quietly, staring down at his hands. Most likely trying hard to stay in control until they're out of the air, which is a good plan, as far as Tony can see.

"And what of my brother?" Thor asks. "Do we attempt to capture him?"

It's Steve who says, "If he's actually closing those things down, then I think we should just let him. Like the director says, if the opportunity comes up, we can take it. If not, well, somehow I doubt this'll be the last time we see him."

"Just our fucking luck," Clint mutters. But he nods. "Yeah, let's not waste any time on him we don't have to."

"Guys, look at this," Tasha calls back, her voice tight, almost strangled. Her face, what Tony can see of it, is white.

When he gets an eyeful himself, he understands why.

It is pure, absolute pandemonium out there: a nightmare mishmash of flying fire-breathers – which, okay, look more like birds than dragons – and the green bombs and robots shooting and smoke billowing up like storm clouds from hundreds of small fires: cars, buildings, even the ground itself appears to be burning.

There are bodies, too, small but distinct from this high up.

Jesus Christ, Tony thinks sickly, turning away. "Let me off," he tells Tasha. "Now."

She nods and hits the button to open the rear door.

Steve catches his eye. "Be careful out there."

"Yeah," Tony says. He glances at Bruce, who's still sitting and staring at his hands. "I'm heading to the White House. See you on the ground, big guy."

"...yeah."

With that, Tony launches straight into the heart of chaos.

xXx

It's like waking up in the middle of a pinball game: a blur of things bouncing off him and things speeding at him and a wall of noise. He zips through it as best he can, dodging the flying green things and the smoke columns, and the birds he sees not only breathe fire but also spit out some kind of oily substance beforehand – he gets a bit of it on his suit – that they use to spread the fire.

He makes it to the White House just about the time Cap says he and the others are on the ground.

Hovering near the same tree he'd hovered behind the last time (just a couple of days ago, Jesus, was that really all it was?), he decides it's not as bad as he'd feared: the White House looks like it's still standing, even if the fence is gone and half the trees are burning. It's not good, though: there's one of those sun-bright white tears just up the street spitting out green bombs, which have turned Pennsylvania Avenue into a pitted, impassible mess of chunked concrete and flipped-over, husked-out cars.

Just inside what used to be the White House fence is the second tear, a big one, out of which another goddamn robot army is rolling and marching.

Tony passes along that information to the rest of the team, all of whom are now fanning out to tackle the fires at the other tear sites. Captain tells him not to wait.

Briefly, Tony wonders where the hell Loki is.

And it's like the thought is a summons, because all of a sudden Loki's right below where Tony's hovering, just appearing out of nowhere like some damn magician reached into a hat and pulled him out. He's wearing his armor this time, reindeer hat and all, but it looks like it's a little beat up, scuffed and dented in places, and there's a bit of a limp in his step.

He's completely nonchalant when he approaches the tear where green bombs are coming from, pausing behind it, lifting his hands, and in literally a matter of twenty seconds, shrinking it to nothing.

Huh, Tony thinks, that was easy.

Which, of course, is the point when basically all the robots turn and start shooting at him.

Tony bites off a curse and shoots out from behind the tree, guns and rockets blazing. He veers off toward where Loki is fending off advancing wheeled robots with blasts from his staff, bolts of blue firing out almost faster than Tony can see. It's not enough, though: for every one Loki manages to take out, two more are right behind it.

Tony makes a couple of breathless, diving passes right over them, firing without really even needing to aim. Most of his shots punch through the awkward-looking oblong metal heads, and drop better than a dozen of the things in each pass.

It also draws their fire away from Loki, and as Tony begins to make his third diving pass, he calls out, "Hey! Go do your thing. I'll keep 'em busy."

Without waiting for an answer, he swings down so he's right between Loki and the wheeled robots. Behind him, he hears, "Aim for the yellow in the center. That appears to be the source of their power."

And sure enough, as soon as Tony shoots one in its glowing yellow chest, it goes down. "All right, I got it," he says. "Go on. I'll cover you. JARVIS! New plan: aim for the yellow bullseye!"

"Yes, sir. Calculating." The suit adjusts automatically, and Tony, dodging hundreds of little energy projectiles, starts firing again.

He keeps flying just low enough to keep the robots engaged, spinning and twisting and shooting, drawing the robots further and further away from the tear. More than once he gets hit, and stings like shit – it's about like getting hit with a paintball – but the suit absorbs most of the impact and energy, so no actual damage is done to the suit, and he gets a bit of a power bump from the energy, which helps.

Eventually, Loki gets the tear reversed, which creates the same vacuum effect as before. Tony wrangles the remaining robots close enough to get caught up in the tear's pull, making sure to keep clear of the tear's pull himself.

Once the majority of the robots have been sucked back down the rabbit hole, Loki starts to close the tear.

Just as he's about to finish, just as Tony starts to think, hey, at least they managed to keep the White House from being blown apart, Tony's sensors pick up a huge energy surge right over his head.

There's a sound like snap-snap-BOOM, and another white thing flashes into existence about five hundred feet in the air. It starts dropping green bombs down right over where Loki's still standing, hands raised and the last of his magic working on the portal in front of him.

Tony doesn't even think, just reacts, diving forward as fast as he can to more-or-less scoop Loki up and fly him the hell out of the way. It's clumsy and inelegant – Loki's heavy, and he nearly stabs Tony first with the antlers and then with the staff as he struggles in Tony's grasp.

"What are you doing?" he roars. "Put me down!"

"Hold still!" Tony grits as the suit pitches and lists in a desperate attempt to compensate for the extra weight in his arms. He wheels around in a clumsy circle to face the new tear and snaps, "Look."

Loki does stop struggling and, on seeing the new tear, mutters, "...ah."

"Yeah. You're welcome." Jesus. "Can you close that from the ground?"

"No," is the terse answer. "If you can, ah, fly me up to it, I can."

"Okay," Tony says, thinking. The conclusion he draws makes him grimace, but – shit. What choice is there? "Well, listen, don't read anything into this, but I want you to climb on my back. It's too awkward for me to fly you up like this."

In many, many ways.

Loki's sudden grin is unexpected, startling: the sun appearing for the first time after days of clouds. "Ooh, so you're saying you want me to ride you, Stark?"

"Yeah," Tony deadpans. "Hard."

And, hey, why not? He's probably done weirder things as Iron Man, but off-hand he can't think of very many. At all. So what the hell? Might as well go for it.

He slows and swings his arms up, and Loki, with his damnable feline grace, settles himself on Tony's back in just a matter of seconds, long legs tucked up along Tony's sides, torso leaned down over Tony's back. "Better?" he asks.

"Yeah," Tony says as he lays on the speed again. And it is, mostly because the weight is distrubited more evenly, but also because now he can't actually see Loki. Feeling him is bad enough. "How close do you need to be?"

"As close to the underside as you can get me. Just stay along the edge, out of the path of whatever's falling out."

He flies up higher, skirting the line of falling green bombs, until he's almost close enough to touch the white tear. Up close, it makes this kind of electrical buzzing sound, like live power wires cut down in the middle of a street.

When Loki goes to close the thing, Tony can actually feel the surge of energy around him. It's enough to make all the tiny hairs stand up all over his body. His suit sensors have a hell of a time even tracking the amount of energy involved, it's so massive.

It only Loki takes a few seconds to shut it down – he's getting better at this, Tony thinks – and when it's over, JARVIS chimes up in Tony's ear. "Sir, suit power is now at three hundred percent."

"Three...? Loki, did you do something to my suit? I just got a massive power boost."

"I did nothing," Loki replies, the accented words drifting down from somewhere overhead. "Perhaps your suit absorbed some of the tear's energy? There was some residue."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So, I guess I'll just put you down now."

"If I may make a suggestion?"

"What?"

"I can sense two more of these tears up this high. It would be simplest for me to close them if you would, ah, allow me ride you over to them."

Asshole. Tony pretends he can't hear the laughter in Loki's voice, because seriously. "Shit," he mutters. "All right, fine. JARVIS, give me coordinates on the nearest tear at current altitude."

A moment later, JARVIS has the coordinates set and Tony speeds off – flying a hell of a lot faster than before, thanks to the energy boost – in that direction. Loki is crouched down low over him, one long arm wrapped around his chest, and...

...at some point, Loki starts laughing, this low and somehow delighted sound, which sounds nothing at all like his usual sharp, cutting mockery of a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Tony asks, as he skirts around a thick smoke-cloud.

"I have never flown like this before," Loki says, his voice coming from somewhere around the back of Tony's neck. "I imagine it looks perfectly ridiculous, but it's actually quite enjoyable."

Yeah, okay, no, Tony's not supposed to laugh at that, but he does, quietly and to himself, because there's something almost wondering in the crazy fucker's voice, like a kid waking up on Christmas morning to a roomful of present. Or maybe a kid stepping onto a roller-coaster for the first time.

...or maybe you, the first time you took your suit out for a flight?

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," he says dryly. "Now shut up and hang on. We're about to hit traffic." Up ahead, he can see a clusterfuck of those bird-things. They are literally everywhere, breathing their fire and making their mindless, cawing noises. He dives down low, a sharp, swift movement that, okay, is a little fun, but he absolutely does ignore the surprised, amused sound his passenger makes.

And, oh, he hopes nobody on the team is seeing this.

Shouldn't have thought that, because of course:

"Stark?" An incredulous snap over the 'comm. "What in the fuck are you doing?" Clint, sounding constipated and pissed off. "Please tell me he's attacking you so I can fucking shoot him."

One of those big fire-breathing birds swoops overhead just then, and Tony banks hard to his left to stay out of its sight-line. "No," he says through his teeth. "We're heading up to close down the tears overhead. Just – don't say a word. I know."

"Tony, what's going on?" Steve asks. "Where are you?"

"Heading up to the Capitol Building," Tony replies. He can see the tear up ahead. More of the fire-breathing bird things are flying out of it. "It's all clear over at the White House, so I'm, ah, giving Loki a lift up to the tear up there. Only way he can close those things down. Don't say a word."

"I wasn't going to," Steve replies. "Do you what you have to. Thor, Hulk, and I are on the ground down below you. There's another tear down here. More robots."

"Yeah, I see you guys," Tony says, angling up hard to avoid yet another of the bird things. He'd caught a glimpse of green and red and blue in the middle of what looked like hundredsof those robot things. "Hey, I thought you were gonna send Hulk my way."

"Sorry about that. We got hit hard right out of the jet. I was about to send him to you-"

"I'm good here. Hey, do me a favor and try to clear out a path around that tear. Soon as we're done up top, I'll bring Loki down and have him close it."

He doesn't hear Cap's reply, because Loki says, in a voice bright with urgency, "I suggest you move, Stark. We've attracted an admirer."

One of the fire-breathers, Tony's sensors tell him, and it's right on his heels.

"Dammit," Tony growls. He banks left, shooting the gap between a couple of buildings at something just shy of breakneck speed just as the bird spits greasy fire from its beak. Most of it boils past them, but some of the oily stuff gets all over his legs and flares alight. Alarms start going off inside Tony's helmet.

"Hey, put out that fire!" he calls, and fuck – the bird thing dives around the building, and comes straight at them.

All of a sudden, there's a massive temperature drop along Tony's back. As the bird opens its beak to breathe fire all over them, a blast of ice hits it full on. The fire hisses where it touches the ice, and oily water drops everywhere like rain.

"Keep flying at it, Stark!" Loki calls down, and Tony suddenly remembers, randomly, that last time he'd seen such a drastic temperature drop, Loki had turned blue.

Tony zooms up to the bird, and the ice freezes the bird's beak, then its head, and then its body, and it drops out of the sky to shatter on the ground below.

Which, okay, is kind of bad-ass.

The portal is just up ahead, and Tony wastes absolutely no time darting between and above the birds to get to it. Of course, by the time they reach it, they've got maybe a dozen of the ugly gray things following them, with another dozen or so streaking over.

"Hurry!" Tony urges as he pulls to a stop at the edge of the tear. He angles himself up enough that he can at least shoot at the damned things. In doing so, he discovers that targeting the eyes seems to work best, so he aims and shoots as fast as he can, even as the sky boils fire around them.

"Move above it, Stark," Loki says at some point. "Otherwise, we'll be pulled in."

He goes cold again and starts shooting ice at the birds as Tony flies them a short distance above the tear. The bird-things – two, maybe three dozen by now – get sucked into the tear, squawking and screaming fire and beating their leathery wings hard against against a force that refuses to let them go.

Once they're gone, Loki seals the tear. After that's done, his temperature climbs back up somewhere toward normal again.

"Cap!" Tony calls, turning once more, "we're coming your way."

"Come on down, Tony. We're all ready for you."

He flies Loki down a smoke-filled, but mercifully bird-free street. The place looks like a war zone, all burned-out buildings and smoking cars, debris everywhere, and a deep quiet over everything like those first terrible stunned moments after a bomb blast.

There are a few people staggering around, but, more distressingly, there are many people down there who aren't moving.

But there's no time to worry about them, not really, so Tony clenches his teeth and presses on.

When they reach the Capitol Building, they find that Thor, Cap, and Hulk have reduced almost the entire field of robots to scrap. Steve and Hulk are up near the tear itself now, dealing with what few stragglers they missed.

Tony lands easily, and heads over to his teammates while Loki takes care of the tear.

Cap looks a little worse for wear: there are a whole bunch of rips in his costume, with red welts visible in the skin. Hulk, too, is the same way, his green skin mottled with darker green welts. But they're both standing and Steve actually grins when Tony approaches.

"You guys okay?" Tony asks, flipping up his faceplate.

"Yeah," Steve replies. "You?"

"Fine. Where's Thor?"

"I sent him over to help Clint and Tasha." He darts a quick look at Loki, whose staff is glowing bright blue as he draws his hands together over the tear. "I thought it was probably better to save the family reunion until we're done."

"Ah. Good thinking."

"Any sign of what's causing all this?"

"None that I've seen," Tony says.

"He is here," Loki says. He has finished with the tear and is walking over. There are raised red welts on his hands and face, his skin is ashy-pale, and there's a bit of a sag to his shoulders, but for all that he still manages to give off an air of absolute unconcern as he strolls through all the twisted metal and heaps of broken parts. Pausing nearest Tony, he adds, "I have seen him twice, but was in no position to catch him either time."

It's that awkward moment when enemies are standing in the same place at the same time, not being enemies, and not really sure exactly how things are going to go, so the silence is about uncomfortable as silence can get.

"If you see something red and black," Loki finally offers, glancing between Cap and Tony, "that is him."

"Oh," Cap says, clearing his throat. "Okay. Um. Red and black. What is he?"

"A creature from another realm," Loki says. "I know little of him, save that he is extremely dangerous."

"Right. Gotcha." Cap glances up at Hulk, who's staring down at Loki like a hungry dog staring at a steak. "We should go help the others."

"Yeah," Tony says. He glances at Loki. "We still have one more in the air we need to-"

He cuts off when his sensors start wigging out on him, alarms braying steady and urgent. JARVIS says, "Detecting another energy surge in your immediate vicinity, sir. I suggest you vacate the area."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Tony mutters. He kicks off the ground, and says, "We got another one incoming. Move."

But his warning's not fast enough. There's another of those snap-snap-BOOM sounds, this one enough to shake the ground around them, and the the sky literally rips open.

Right behind Hulk.

Hulk is thrown forward from the force of it, but he lands on his feet, howls, and turns to charge the goddamn thing.

"Wait!" Steve yells from where he's just picking himself up off the ground. "Don't!"

Of course Hulk ignores him. Big Green charges down the tear, moving faster than anything that big should actually be able to. He swings one massive arm like he's trying to punch the thing, and his entire arm just disappears into it.

His rage-filled bellow becomes pain-tinged, but when he pulls his arm back, he's actually holding something: a struggling being of some kind with blood red skin and black hair, something that looks oddly to Tony like a cartoon artist's vision of the devil. He's big, but Hulk is a lot bigger, and his struggles stop in a hurry after Hulk slams it to the ground a few times.

Loki, a little green around the gills all of a sudden, walks over to the tear and closes it. He keeps shooting Hulk these wary sideways glances as he does, like he's afraid Hulk's going to come after him next.

Cap heads over to the unconscious devil-thing and says, "What is this?"

"That, I believe is Mephisto," Loki tells him, the word the same growl that he'd always used for the word Avengers, like word just tastes bad. "He's the one doing this. Or was, if your...Hulk didn't kill him."

Hulk twitches toward Loki, who takes a big step back, eyes wide.

Tony touches back down on the ground, landing between the two. "Easy, big guy," he says. He's not really sure who he's talking to, but he doubts it matters: neither one pays attention to him.

"We could use a hand down here, if you guys can spare one," Tasha calls over the 'comm just then. "We're getting overrun."

"Running out of ammo," Clint puts in. "So hurry the fuck up already."

Steve flinches. "We're on our way. Hang tight." He hesitates, though, casting a dubious look at the unmoving red-and-black creature. "What do we do about him? I don't want to just leave him here."

"If you would like," Loki says, "I can bind him so he cannot escape."

"What, like tie him up?" Tony asks. "Kinky."

Loki shoots him a look. "I was thinking something a little colder, actually. He would not be able to move until he can be retrieved. If your beast left..." He swallows, casting another wary look up at Hulk. "If, that is, he is still even alive."

Cap's gaze flicks back and forth between Hulk, Tony, and Loki, a frown clouding normally clear eyes. "All right," he finally says. He touches the side of his mask. "Director," he says, "we think we caught the thing that caused all this. We're going to have Loki, um, make it so he can't move. Can you spare anybody to come down at get him?"

"We've got a few people in the area," Fury says. "I'll send them over. What are we looking at?"

As the captain answers, it occurs to Tony that he hadn't heard from Fury once during the entire firefight.

Which – he can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

And he's still trying to puzzle that one out when the captain turns to him and says, "We're going ahead to meet the others. See you two there."

Make sure Loki does what he says, is the message Tony reads in the Steve's cool-steel eyes.

"Sure," Tony mutters, wondering just when the hell it became his goddamn job to babysit.

Steve reaches up to clap Hulk's forearm. "Come on, big guy. Let go smash."

Hulk grunts, grins his mad grin, and leaps away, with Cap following on his heels.

Alone again, and feeling kind of awkward and tired and weirded the hell out because Captain Fucking America has just referred to them as "you two" like they're actually a pair or something, Tony glances at Loki. Loki appears just as discomfited, all hooded eyes and thinned lips and a pensive frown cutting lines in his forehead.

And because Tony apparently has no filter between his brains and his mouth, he blurts, "So this is weird, isn't it? Us working together. It's..."

"Strange, yes," Loki says. "I – yes. We should..."

"Right," Tony says.

Because they should.

But they don't.

There's this thing that happens, this weird little moment, where they kind of just stand there and stare at each other, and Tony has no idea what the hell is going on, but he finds that trying to look away is like trying to fall up – can't do it – and it kind of freaks him the fuck out because he doesn't really want to look away.

And he is not thinking about biting kisses in the dark.

Is not. At all. Thinking about things like that would just be wrong, considering they're right in the middle of a fucking battle field, with a lot of work left to do.

And besides that, it never happened.

...except he's pretty sure it did. And if he was still a gambling man, he'd bet he knew exactly what was going through Loki's head right then.

Which is just fifteen kinds of fucked up, because seriously.

Tony shakes himself and finally breaks eye contact. Slaps his faceplate back down. "Uh, yeah, so – uh. The binding thing? You should do that. We need to go."

Loki blinks, face clearing, and nods. Without a word, he walks over to Mephisto's downed carcass and kneels. "He still draws breath," he murmurs, setting his staff aside. "Pity."

Rising, he turns cold and frosty blue again as this glowing blue cube suddenly appears in his hands. He uses it to encase Mephisto in a layer of ice so thick Mephisto becomes nothing more than a few flecks of red and black in a field of startling white.

That done, he makes the cube disappear. "That will hold him until he's ready to be retrieved," he says, reaching for his staff.

"Good," Tony says. "Hop aboard, then. Let's get this done."

Loki barks a humorless laugh and says, "Agreed."

xXx

In the end, it's pretty anticlimactic.

They have to deal with a few more of the fire-breathing birds – Loki's cape gets singed all to hell from one of them – and so much smoke Tony can barely see, but eventually they make it up to the tear.

The others are still fighting on the ground when at last Tony touches down, a mad swarm of maybe two hundred robots still creating all kinds of hell, and he races off to join them.

He's pretty battle-numb at this point, is pretty sure they all are, but he fights anyway, using up the last of his ammo on a group that's gone after an ammo-less Hawk.

Thor and Hulk do most of the work, Thor still a whirling dervish with his Hammer – even if he seems to have to pause for breath a little longer after each toss – and Hulk mindlessly smashing his way through machine after machine. Widow holds her own, too, using her impressive speed to help her leap up to snap one robot's head off and then kick another right in that yellow spot on the chest. Hawk and Cap are in pretty much the same boat, using fists and feet and hands to tear apart and smash.

It's a slog, but finally, finally it's over.

And when the last robot finally squeals its electronic death throes, they all lower their hands and their weapons into a deafening silence, and they just look at each other, stunned and marveling at the fact that they're still all standing.

They're all beat up, all covered in welts and cuts and bruises, but nobody's actually hurt, which is a minor miracle in an of itself.

It's as good a sign as any that, hey, maybe they're getting this team thing right, after all.

Tony's the first one to look around.

He is not surprised, whatsoever, to discover that Loki has disappeared.

Not a bit.

xXx

Neither, it turns out, is he surprised when he learns that S.H.I.E.L.D. never captured Mephisto.

They'd had to scramble a helicopter because the roads were so blasted-up, and they'd arrived at the scene just in time to see Loki blast the ice-cocoon apart, grab the creature under one arm, and disappear.

In the back of the quinjet, away from the others, Steve glares at Tony as the news comes in.

Tony, slumped into a seat, just shrugs. "You expected something else? It's Loki. Of course he's going to screw us somehow. Not one of the good guys, remember? Only helping us because he had to."

It's a relief to be able to say that, a relief to be able to shove Loki back into that 'bad guy' box, because, really, that's where the crazy fuck belongs.

Tony certainly never expected anything else, just because they had one – weirdly fun – mission where they were fighting on the same side.

Because guys like Loki, bad guys-

-like you?-

-never really change.

And Steve seems to understand this, because he reaches over and claps Tony's shoulder. "You did good work out there, Tony. And don't worry – the next time he shows his face around here, we'll be ready for him."

Tony offers a weak smile. "Of course we will, Cap," he says.

Because, yeah.

Guys like that never change.

And it's stupid to think otherwise.

xXx

Screaming feed me here
Fill me up again
Temporarily pacifying
-A Perfect Circle, "The Hollow"

A/N: Thanks for reading and for all the reviews, folks!