Anthony stood there, his mouth set in a cold line. He looked rather composed overall. One would not have thought anything was wrong if it was not uncharacteristic for him to be so stoical. Loki could read his tenseness in his stillness, the tightness of his jaw but mostly in his eyes which held a panicked hunted look. Anthony seemed to only just be realising that he could be making a mistake.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Loki queried pleasantly as if he did not know exactly what was going on.

"A promise is a promise," Anthony answered stiffly. Loki smiled in an almost bored manner. He had expected Anthony to stay true to his word, but there still remained a small pleased surprise that came with it.

"And the bottle?" Loki asked as if they were discussing whether it would rain or not. He distinctly remembered how distraught the other had gotten although the mortal hid it well.

"I seem to recall that I owe you a drink. I figured we could do with a celebratory drink after we escaped." Anthony looked almost confused by his own statement as if he could not quite recall when he had offered Loki a drink. Loki sighed inwardly, it was happening so soon already. To think that he himself was the catalyst.

Then Tony stood with a smouldering repulsor and Loki's cage just fell apart. Loki could not help but raise an impressed eyebrow. Well, that was simple enough. Although whether Anthony got the repulsor from or half the things he got was to anyone's guess.

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Tony answered demurely. "Shall we go?"

"We?" Loki asked watching how Anthony's jaw twitched. "I think I would remember mentioning anything about 'we'." Anthony's face seemed to crumble within itself. Loki told himself that he was rewarding the other for keeping his promise not because he could see the telltale glistening around the teenager's eyes. He was so young. Loki may have made a mistake in making the other younger; he had not predicted how it would affect his perception and treatment of Anthony.

What is it that Midgardians did to comfort their young? It was a sort of embrace. Was he supposed to do that to stop whichever tears may come out? If he admitted to himself he was sort of panicking at the mere suggestion of tears. Tears of anger or fear or pain he was used to. Not tears of hurt. Loki decided against embracing Anthony, it would do no good for the Midgardian to go into a state of shock from an awkward gesture or meaningless platitudes. There was no point.

With a small sigh, he placed his helmet upon Anthony's head. That should keep him content and would be far less harrowing than making physical contact with him. The horned helmet mostly fitted but slid down a little.

"But I can work with 'we'. Understand this Anthony; staying by my side would put you in unnecessary danger. Lethal measures will be used against me, you could be caught in the crossfire."

"I understand." Anthony stated with a sharp nod of his head. The helmet bobbed and Loki manoeuvred Anthony further away so he did not take Loki's eye out. He would prefer not to wear an eye patch like Odin.

"Well, you cannot say I did not warn you." Loki stated smoothly taking the bottle away from the little mortal before he did any harm to himself with it. Intoxication was not ideal for their getaway. Anthony did not seem to notice so preoccupied with the helmet.

"On a scale from one to ten, one being the worst, how awesome does it look?" Anthony asked.

"It would look better with a cape." Loki remarked with slightly pursed lips as he considered how to allow Anthony to be more awesome in terms of looks. "And if you had the decency to wear trousers." Anthony gave a low grin.

"Trousers are..."

"For lowly peasants." Loki finished with a long-suffering sigh. At least he had improved his tagalong mortal's mood.

"Exactly."

"Loki." Tony's voice had dropped to an almost whisper, a quiet thing after his excited proposals about trousers. It was uncertain in a way he never really expected to hear. Pleading almost. "Could we not kill anyone?"

That word again, we, as if they were a team. "If you insist." He declared, playing it off as if it was some great burden and sacrifice he would have to make. Tony all but beamed at him.

"You're the best." Well, that was new. He almost felt inclined to thank the other but he refrained.


"Open the door, JARVIS." Steve commanded. The doors remained closed.

"I'm sorry, Steve. I'm afraid I can't do that." Came JARVIS' calm, measured reply. A response which caused goose-bumps to travel up his spine.

"What's the problem?"

"I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do." Steve looked towards the other Avengers in a mild panic. This was just unsettling, Natasha just looked irritated. Bruce, on the other hand, had a slight green hint and Thor looked at the ceiling with furrowed eyebrows. It was customary for them to look at the ceiling when talking to JARVIS despite the fact he was everywhere, now didn't that thought make him want to itch. Clint was pacing back and forth.

"Okay, who the heck downloaded HAL to JARVIS?" Clint practically growled. Steve relaxed somewhat as it was a reference, of course, it was. Tony coded JARVIS after all. Clint stopped pacing.

"Come on JAR, open the door." Clint had a pleading tone in his voice. Steve looked at Clint in mild surprise, the man seemed rather distressed. Steve supposed it was the fact it was Loki who was loose.

"My instructions state to do otherwise." Clint's eyebrows came together and mouth twisted unpleasantly.

"Just open the fucking door! Loki is loose, Tony could be in danger." JARVIS stayed suspiciously quiet. No one said that Tony could have been the one who let him loose in the first place, the timing of the cake and Loki's escape was just too much of a coincidence.
Especially with JARVIS' refusal to be of help.

"Fuck it." Clint stated pulling an arrow from his quiver, it made a whoosh of air as it embedded itself in the wall next to the door before giving a telltale beeping noise. When the wall exploded and they all sort of looked at him. He glared right back at them.

"Don't." So they did not say anything.


"I used to wish I had a brother. Or more specifically that I had Captain America as a brother." Loki looked at Tony wondering where he was going with this sudden conversation.

"I used to pretend that even though he was my father's favourite. Father spent more time looking for a dead guy than even bothering to look at me. So I used to sit and pretend that it was alright if Captain America was his favourite as I would have been Captain America's favourite so it was not so bad."

"Oh yes, my heartstrings are pulled." Loki said snidely with a show of clutching his hand to his chest stepping back a little so Tony could send a blast at a foolish agent unlucky enough to come across them.

"But in the end, I did not need him. I found Rhodey and to be honest I find the big C.A. a little lacking, I expected more." Tony continued, obligingly ducking so that Loki could send another agent flying with a flick of his wrist, without even pausing in his step.

"What is your point, mortal?"

Tony shrugged. "There's no real point, really, just thought we were bonding." Loki actually gave a huff of something approaching laughter. Tony felt accomplished.

"This is your idea of bonding?"

"It's practically tennis. Tennis is something people do to bond." Tony stated thinking back to how many golf and tennis sessions his father and mother partook in with business partners. His mother was quite a good swing with a racket.

"You must show me this tennis sometime." Loki mused pulling Tony's collar casually to stop him walking into some open fire.
"I'm sure you'd excel in it, you have the leg advantage." Tony rather admired the thought of Loki in some tennis shorts, the whole tennis player look would surprisingly suit him.

"Are you implying I don't excel in everything that I do?"

"Of course not, the fact you're practically perfect in every way goes without saying."

"I would prefer if you said so anyway."

"But of course." Tony agreed readily. "Have I mentioned your hair looks particularly shiny today?"

"That's because I'm worth it." Loki responded with a smile, he guessed he could sort of see why Thor may keep these Midgardians around. They could be entertaining. "However impressive the simply walking out route is becoming annoying the way these agent ants are crawling out of the wood-works, may I suggest a subtler route?"


They had split up to cover more ground, or rather Clint had panicked at the sight of agents taken out yet no sign of Tony. Whilst the others checked out the bodies he was already running frantically hoping to find Tony, miraculously safe.

Clint prided himself on seeing things that most people did not see; he was called Hawkeye for a reason after all. But when he saw Tony being escorted by Steve, he was too full of relief that he ignored the thing had was telling him things were off. The conversation was odd for one.

"God Save America, star spangled banner, patriotism intensifying." He placed it as Steve actually making fun of himself to make Tony more comfortable.

For instance the fact Tony was actually smiling genuinely and laughing. He shouldn't really find that so strange, so he dismissed the feeling that this was wrong. There was also the fact that how had Steve gotten to Tony first, but he was too busy grasping at Tony's chin and turning his head side to side as he checked him over. He was too busy checking that Tony's eyes weren't blue he missed the fact that Steve's were a little too green. Tony's eyes were brown with not a hint of blue, he gave a sigh of relief and began checking for injuries.

He made another mistake of turning his back towards Steve. He tended to make mistakes when he was compromised.

"Thank goodness you're okay." He breathed out before pulling the rather panicked looking boy into a hug. Tony was clearly miming something to Steve behind his back. He missed Steve's response of a flurry of green magic from his fingers.

"Well isn't this sweet?" Steve cooed, that's when Clint knew that he fucked up. He felt almost a sense of release at the sight of Tony with blue eyes before it all went dark.


"Don't panic."

"Oof. Too late." Tony answered fretting as he tried desperately to keep Clint's body upright after catching him, Clint's weight was winning out though despite his straining muscles. Tony was aware that Clint was getting closer to the ground with each passing second.

"Couldn't have you just played along and not zap him?" Tony murmured wondering if hitting the ground would really be all that bad.

"It's not like I killed him. I so kindly let him live at your request, I am a very benevolent god. He would have been 'zapped' sooner or later." Loki stated taking some pity at Tony's struggles and leant a small hand in keeping Clint from hitting the ground. "Should we stash him in a cupboard?"

Tony looked utterly appalled "We cannot just stash him in a cupboard like some mop!"

"As you wish. What do you propose? Throw him out a window?"

"That's worst!"

"Pity, it would have been amusing." Loki sighed looking at the window longingly. "And so easy." He added miming letting go with his hand where he was not supporting Tony's plight of not letting Clint Barton do his impression of a sack of potatoes and drop with a
thud.

"You're strong." Tony murmured in awe considering Loki kept most of Clint's weight if not all of it with just one hand.

"Thank you." Loki stated quickly waiting for Tony to recover himself and continue what he was going to say.

"We could place him gently somewhere soft?" Tony suggested

"Oh, how utterly diabolical of you. Want to place a blanket over him as well? Is your grand plan of escape consists of piling the Avengers in a soft pile of cushions."

"If it's a possible solution then yes. Besides it is not like you made any great plans." Tony answered wanting to throw up his hands in frustration.

"I'm just tagging along to see you do next, I should have brought grapes as it's rather amusing. I could have left anytime by now."

"But you haven't."

"Don't smile at me like that, I will change my mind and let you deal with the whole fallout."

"Stop it, Stark."

"Oh, so it's Stark now? What happened to Anthony?"

"We should go to the penthouse there's a landing deck there."


They found Clint covered with a blanket.

"Is he sleeping?" Steve asked hopefully.

"That or dead." Natasha answered, Steve gave him a horrified look and Natasha gave Thor a glance.

"Loki is capable of such." Thor responded gravely.

"Should we poke him? Tony would poke him." Bruce murmured reaching out to do just that. Clint caught his hand before he could prod his cheek. Clint looked at him with wild eyes.

"Oh, guess he isn't dead." Thor stated with pursed lips before they stretched into a broad grin. "That is good for it means Loki hasn't..."

"No one cares about Loki." Steve snapped out, they really had more pressing issues rather than hearing that Loki has good in him.

"I care about Loki." Thor responded affronted looking ready to start a brawl.

"Not now, Clint should be our priority." Bruce murmured hoping to break the fight before it started, but his bets were on Thor winning.

"Tony." Clint said urgently.

"Yes, we're going to save him." Steve said reassuringly.

"Loki's has control of him."

"But the spectre," Thor began.

"I know what I saw. Blue eyes." Clint cut Thor off with a glare, Thor relented with a small nod.


"This is where I leave you," Loki stated Tony looked at him in a panic with his brown eyes. "Don't worry it's all part of the plan. Trust me."

Loki was not sure whether he should have a heart attack or not when Tony responded. "Okay, I trust you." Loki honestly did not expect that to work, it never worked.

When Loki disappeared in a shimmer of green, Tony held onto the fact that Loki had promised to lie to him, he admitted to withholding information and some of the truth but he said he would not lie. 'Go ahead, trust the war criminal who's not only a criminal but known for his lies' a voice inside of him stated, the voice sounded older and more tired than his own, but it was still his.

"A coward to the last." Thor murmured as the Avengers turned the corner. "Loki was always one to back away from a true fight." Thor stated scornfully.