9. "In a violence of pretending, it's hard to know which side you're defending. Still I know you must continue, trying to win a war waged within you."
Loki has always been, by nature, a patient man.
Reasonably.
Some of his more memorable pranks in his youth required a fair bit of time and set-up to come to full fruition. Everything from the planning to the execution required a good deal of self-discipline so he did not ruin the jest before it had time to come off as intended.
Pranks and jests aside, dealing with Thor's idiocy often required feats of patience that were the equivalent of or even greater than Thor's feats of physical strength.
At this moment, however, as he stands before a glaring Thanos, Loki finds that his self-discipline and patience have all but deserted him.
Something about the abrupt summons, he supposes.
"It does not appear," the mad Titan is growling, "that you have made progress in acquiring the means to create my portal, godling. I am beginning grow weary of waiting. I am beginning to think some encouragement is necessary."
"I need no encouragement," Loki retorts without thinking. It isn't that he doesn't recognize the dangerous way in which he had been addressed; it is simply that he does not care. "And I am beginning to grow weary of your threats. You'll have your portal when I am ready to create it for you, and not a moment sooner."
And, oh, how he wishes he could revoke those stupid, incautious, impatient words.
Thanos's face twists. Fury in his eyes like a bubbling magma pit, flaring and sparking, hot enough to melt bone and rock and metal.
An unseen hand lifts Loki up by his throat, high enough that his feet no longer contact the floor. The grip is crushing. His windpipe buckles, his breath is stoppered, and the sudden pressure behind his eyes is immense. It feels as if his head is going to burst like a piece of overripe fruit in his helmet.
"I have not even begun to threaten you, godling," he hears Thanos snarl, the sound distant over the roaring in his ears. "When I do, you will know."
Loki drops his staff and claws at his throat. His fingers encounter nothing but his own pressed-in, crushed flesh. His vision has begun to gray at the edges, and he can hear the panic gibbering in the back of his mind.
Ignoring both, he closes swollen eyes and forces himself to focus.
In his focus is his magic.
He summons it to him and hurls a desperate burst of magical energy toward Thanos: artless, raw energy that catches Thanos square in the chest and throws him backward.
The hideous pressure on Loki's throat disappears, and he crashes to the ground. He lands in an untidy tangle of his cloak and useless limbs, gasping and retching, wide-eyed, a wild drum beating in his head and ears and chest.
Somewhere up ahead, Thanos bellows with the kind of inarticulate rage that brings images of green monsters into Loki's mind's eye. The very air around him seems to tremble as Thanos rises and bears down on him.
Loki, still on his knees, does not flinch. He finds his staff and slams it down in front of him. "Enough," he rasps, the word little more than a grinding whisper. It is deeply painful, and he can taste blood in every word. "It was wrong of me to speak so rudely," he manages. "I apologize. Sincerely. I have found the means to bring your army to Earth."
Thanos does stop, just out of arm's reach, and glares down with eyes hotter than planets' molten cores. "Found the means," he says in a tone that is both dangerous and quiet.
In an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure in his temples, Loki removes his helmet and sets it on the ground beside him. His skin is already tingling with healing magic, slow energies just beginning to ease the worst of the ache.
"It is on Muspelheim," he eventually hasps. "The means. It is called Wizard's Eye. Powerful enough on its own to create a portal into the furthest corners of the universe."
"Why, then, have you not acquired it?"
"I tried once long ago," Loki tells him. "However, the Eye is under heavy guard, both by a whole host of fire demons and by some sort of magical seal. I was unable to overcome both." Defeated soundly when his attempt was discovered is the more apt way to describe it, he supposes, but Thanos does not need to know this. "I require assistance – fighters to keep the fire demons at bay whilst I endeavor to break the magic surrounding the eye."
Muspelheim is a world of fire, pure fire, as far removed from Jotunheim as night from day: bright and flickering and openly ferocious, where Jotunheim is dark and unmoving and full of icy rage.
Thanos considers him for a long moment, gaze like a set of scales, measuring and weighing. "How many fighters?" he eventually asks.
"When last I saw, there were perhaps thirty of these demon guards, all of whom are far larger than you or I. I would need at least a hundred skilled fighters. Can you spare that many?"
"I can spare a thousand." Thanos turns to look out at the stars' cold fire. "And that would not be even a small fraction of my army." He does not look around when he adds, "You will have your hundred. I will give them to you out of my own personal guard. These I trained myself."
"I should be honored, then," Loki says. His voice is, thankfully, husky enough to disguise his sarcasm. "I require time to recover and to build up sufficient magical reserve. I shall return in four days' time. Will your soldiers be prepared?"
"They will be waiting," Thanos replies. He turns to take his seat once again. "As will I. You will bring me this Wizard's Eye once you have acquired it. I wish to see it myself."
Loki narrows his eyes at the massive figure before him, wary and doubtful. As much as he wishes to demand an answer to why, he does not ask. He has a strong suspicion the question would earn him another demonstration of Thanos's power, and he is still in sufficient pain that he has no real desire to see it again.
He merely bows his head and murmurs, "As you wish. I shall return."
With that, he retrieves his helmet, pushes to his feet, and disappears in a gesture.
Vowing, as he goes, that he will guard his damned tongue next time.
xXx
"What do you remember?" Tony asks once Bruce has set the glass down.
Bruce frowns at the door. "Nothing. Nothing at all. What the hell happened?"
"Um." Tony takes a breath. "So. About that. It-"
His phone buzzes in his hand just then, and he pauses, mid-thought, to glance down at it. The caller ID shows it's Steve. Tony grimaces at Bruce. "I gotta take this," he says, rising. "Hang tight, okay?"
"Sure," Bruce murmurs, eyes slipping shut again. "Not going anywhere."
Guilt's a hand clenching Tony's guts, and he finds himself walking slump-shouldered to the door. The suit's joins whisper-hiss around him, the sound like angry snakes.
He sighs and hits 'connect' button on the phone as the heavy metal door swings shut behind him. "Steve," he says, leaning against the wall across the hall from it. "How's Clint?"
"He's still in surgery," Steve replies. "His shoulder was pretty much completely dislocated. Most of his tendons and stuff got torn clean away. Plus, almost every bone got broken. His hand was basically crushed. Tasha said they're just trying to stabilize the shoulder joint – whatever that means. She also said they told her it'll be a while before they know how bad the damage really is."
"Jesus," Tony mutters sickly.
"Yeah, it's not good." Steve hesitates a beat before asking, "Is – did Bruce wake up?"
"Ah, yeah, he just did. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet. Says he doesn't remember much. Hey, what the hell did happen, anyway?" It had occurred to him while he'd been waiting that he'd never gotten the full story. "Did Clint just get in his face, or...?"
"I don't know. Thor and I were down in the kitchen. We went running when we heard Hulk start yelling. The crashing. They were in the living room. By that point, he was whipping Clint around by the arm."
Tony winces at the mental image. All he can think of is little kids tearing the wings off of flies. "All right," he says, swallowing. "Well, I'm gonna go."
"Hey, listen, Thor's getting pretty restless. I'm going go ahead and send him back your way. So he can help keep an eye on things. There's really no point in all of us hanging around here, especially since it's probably going to be a few more hours before we know anything."
"Mother hen," Tony says, but it's with a small smile. For all his earlier bravado, he's unsure enough about how things are going to shake out that he'll be glad to have some backup. "Let me when Clint's out of surgery. How it went."
"Will do. Be careful."
"Yeah. And, uh, thanks."
Tony hangs up and heads back into the bare concrete bunker, where he finds that Bruce hasn't moved much beyond pulling his knees to his chest and lowering his chin down on them. Making himself a smaller target, Tony can't help thinking, which is just completely fucked up: Dr. Bruce Banner is no saint, but he deserves better than this.
So instead of sitting back down against the door, Tony crosses the room and sits down right next to him, legs out straight, hands loose at his sides, head back against the wall.
Bruce eyes him sideways. "So, are you gonna tell me what the hell happened?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Tony asks. "The very last thing before you woke up just now."
"Tony-"
"Just humor me, okay? It's important."
Bruce huffs a sigh, cards fingers through graying hair. "Yelling," he says at last. "Clint. He was – upset. About what... About what the other guy did to Tasha the other day. I told him I didn't remember doing it. I don't. I tried to apologize anyway, but he wouldn't...he wasn't... I don't know.
"I could feel the other guy trying wanting to come out," he goes on. "I thought I had a lid on him, but judging by the fact that we're down in this concrete bunker and you're wearing your suit, I'm guessing I didn't."
Bruce tilts his head to look at Tony with dead eyes. "So did I kill him?"
Tony has to swallow a few times before he can answer. One little question, like a fist straight between his eyes, and Jesus Christ what a thing to have to ask. He's done a lot of things he isn't proud of in his lifetime, done plenty of things he's ashamed to admit he's done, but he's never once woken up somewhere and had to ask a question like that. He can't even imagine what that must feel like.
He shakes his head and says, "No. No, you didn't."
Relief like a wave washing across Bruce's face, and he closes his eyes. "Thank God," he says through a sigh. "So tell me, already."
So Tony does.
He spells the entire story out from beginning to end. He doesn't try to censor it. Bruce hates it when people sugarcoat things, so Tony, who's the same way, doesn't bother – just gets the whole thing out there in as fast and forthright a way as he can.
Like ripping off a giant goddamn Band Aid, even though he knows it's gonna go fucking gusher once it's off.
But Bruce really doesn't react much: he gets a little paler, a little gray, and he hugs his knees tighter. He doesn't say a word. That haunted, hollow look doesn't leave his eyes, even as Tony tries to assure him that they all know it was an accident.
Tony eventually runs out of words, so he retreats into silence and lets Bruce work his own way through whatever's going through his head.
Five, maybe ten minutes pass that way. It's not exactly comfortable, sitting on concrete in the Iron Man suit, but Tony makes himself stay still anyway. He doesn't let himself push.
Bruce, staring at the floor, finally says, "I don't even remember changing. That's the part I don't get. I may not always remember everything the other guy does, but I always remember changing. And I always remember some of what happens. But this – it's like a complete black hole. So's the thing with Natasha."
Tony, who maybe knows a few things about waking up on the wrong side of a few black holes himself, nods. "Um. So. You think something might be wrong? With...? Uh, your other guy?"
"I don't know." A waspish little head-shake. "My other guy was pushing a little harder than usual, maybe. Maybe. But that could have been because Clint caught me off-guard. I was reading, and Clint came up behind me. Started in on me. I guess I just lost it." He lifts his head, frowning. "So where are we?"
"The mansion. One of the basements. This was the room I wanted to show you. My old man was going to use it as some kind of fallout shelter, except he never got that far. Every wall is over a foot thick. Reinforced. And these two walls-" he indicates the wall they're leaning against and the wall to their left "-are the corner of the house, so there's nothing but dirt on the other side. Maybe it won't stop you...uh, your other guy, I mean, but it might slow him down."
"Would you stop?" Bruce snaps. "You don't have to tiptoe. Me, the other guy – same damn difference. I almost killed him."
"Take it easy," Tony murmurs. And, oh, he is really hoping he just imagined that flash of green. "You didn't kill him. And he's probably gonna be fine, so just – seriously. Calm down."
"I almost killed him," Bruce repeats, his voice quiet. Way too quiet. Seething. "I lost control and I almost killed him. And I don't even remember it. Do you have any idea how that feels?"
Yeah, definitely not his imagination.
Tony raises his empty hands and says, quietly, "No, no, I don't. I'm sorry, all right? I am. But, in all seriousness, you need to calm down. You're going green on me here."
"Get out," Bruce says through his teeth. He's sweating, his face is contorting like he's in serious pain, and his skin has begun to take on that all-too-familiar green cast. "Go. I can't...stop...it...him. Go."
"Son of a bitch!" Tony scrambles to his feet and races to the door, his heart jackhammering in his chest. He fumbles the door open, flings himself out into the hall, and slams the door shut behind him. He slaps the button that activates the locks.
"JARVIS," he says, "has Thor made it back yet?"
"He just arrived, sir."
"Good. Get him down here on the double. We've got a big problem."
Even through those thick, thick walls, he can hear Hulk bellowing, furious and determined.
And the wall between them shakes as a massive fist plows into it.
"Fuck," Tony mutters, backing away. "Oh fuck."
xXx
"Man of Iron!" Thor bellows not forty-five seconds later, and it is quite literally music to Tony's ears. "What has happened?"
"I don't know!" Tony calls back. "He just went Hulk on me."
Thor skids around the corner, hammer in hand. "Where is he?"
The wall vibrates again.
Tony points. "Behind door number one, Monty." He ignores Thor's befuddled look. "He's contained for now, but I don't know if that's gonna hold. I'm hoping he'll just keep hitting the wall until he's tired himself out. But we should, uh, get back just in case. Be ready."
They head back around a corner and take up positions on either side of the hallway.
Tony puts his helmet on and lowers the face shield. "Get the captain on the line," he instructs JARVIS. He'd left his cell phone inside the room in his haste to get out. Stupid, but at least he hadn't been stupid enough to leave his helmet in there.
Steve picks up right away, and says only, "I'm on my way," after Tony explains the situation.
And that's right about the point when the situation goes to hell.
Because Hulk stops attacking the concrete walls and starts attacking the metal door.
The door is strong, but after half a dozen Hulk-strength punches, the metal starts to buckle.
After the eighth one, the door starts to warp.
"That's not gonna hold," Tony tells Thor, who's lowered himself into a crouch. "When he gets out, I'll go for the legs. You go for the head. Try to knock him out like you did last time. You ready?"
Thor's normally genial face is all grim lines and tension as he nods. "I do not like this," he says.
"Me neither," Tony says.
The metal door gives with a screech and a bang and a roar, sounds that boil down the narrow hallway. Heavy footsteps draw closer, the sound pounding and thudding off the walls.
"On three," Tony murmurs to Thor. "One. Two. Three."
As one, the pair of them round the corner – Tony firing a missile at ground level and Thor hurling Mjolnir at what would be head-height to Hulk.
What Tony isn't counting on is Hulk using the door as a kind of shield, but that's exactly what Mean 'n Green does. Thor's hammer slams into the door with a hollow clang. It's enough to drive Hulk back a few steps, but no more than that. Tony's missile bounces off the metal and skitters off down the other end of the hallway.
The explosion sends up a flash of fire and kicks chunks of concrete and dust everywhere, but it doesn't even faze Hulk, who rounds the corner where Tony and Thor are waiting.
Thor stands, hand up to call Mjolnir back to him.
He gets flattened as Hulk just runs straight through him, door first, and then walks right on him. And before Tony can get his own hand up to fire another missile, Hulk swings the door at him and flattens him, too – only against the wall instead of the floor, and oh holy shit that hurts. He's jammed between the wall and the door, with Hulk pressing like he's trying to iron out all the kinks in Tony's spine.
The pressure releases suddenly and Hulk staggers away. Tony has no idea what happens because he's too busy falling on his face, but he hears a couple of thuds and some concrete cracking and a pained bellow. More thuds then, these heavy like footsteps, and the roaring has stopped but the footsteps fall right past him and keep going.
Tony flails a bit before he manages to get his limbs underneath him. Nothing's broken as far as he can tell, but the suit creaks and protests like some of the joints have gotten misaligned, and wow, is he getting tired of having to hammer out dents in this thing.
He gets to his feet, muttering, "Ow. Okay, bad idea." Across the way, he sees Thor rising from a pile of concrete chunks and dust. "You all right?"
"Yes," is the clipped reply. Thor picks up his hammer, and boy does he look like he wants to drive it into somebody's skull. "He escaped."
"Yeah, I see that. Come on." Tony spins on his heel and leads the charge to the staircase. "JARVIS, lock down the mansion. Seal it off. We need to keep Hulk contained inside. Or as least slow him down. Where is he?"
"He has exited the stairwell, sir," JARVIS replies. "First floor living area. He appears to be heading for the windows."
Tony, having reached the stairwell, launches straight up. Thor raises Mjolnir and flies up right behind him, the showoff, and the two of them hit the first-floor landing just in time to hear glass shattering and wood splintering and brick crumbling as Hulk bashes through the side of the house.
Tony launches another missile through the opening, hoping somehow it'll trip Hulk up. The explosion throws bits of wood and glass and grass back into the house.
Tony and Thor wait a beat for most of the dust to settle, and then they race through the opening.
Hulk's already hopped the fence and is barreling down the street, swiping cars out of his way like a sulky child knocking over his toys.
"Let's see if we can get him turned around," Tony calls over to Thor, as the pair of them take to the air. "Get him back to the mansion."
Thor nods his understanding.
But turns out to be a lot easier said than done.
The instant they get close to Hulk, he swats at them like they are annoying bugs buzzing around his head. He is all undirected rage, roaring and snarling and lashing out with no recognition whatsoever. It's like there is no Bruce in him at all.
Like he literally is some other guy.
Some other really huge, green, and super pissed off guy.
Tony and Thor split off and fly at Hulk from two different directions, coming at him around two buildings and diving at him in near-perfect unison.
Hulk swings his arms up, almost casually, and hits them both with the backs of his hands. Tony careens into a building and has to flail around like a drunken moth to keep himself airborne. Thor fares a little better: he smashed through a window, at least, so he doesn't fall very far, and as soon as he's shaken himself off, he's back it the sky.
And meanwhile, Hulk continues to run roughshod.
They chase him into a tiny park, just an empty little scrub of green grass and a few trees. No people in it, thank God. But for some inexplicable reason Hulk stops.
Well. Not so inexplicable, actually, because he turns and looks right at Thor, who'd made the mistake of flying right up behind him. Hulk slugs him right in the face, and Thor goes flying. The hammer keeps him from getting out of control, but he still winds up a ways away.
Hulk, meanwhile, rips out a park bench and hurls it at Tony, who's hovering just above and to one side of him. Tony dodges it and fires off a missile.
Which Hulk plucks out of the air and throws back at him.
"Not good," Tony says, diving off behind a tree to avoid it. The missile slams into the trunk right in front of him and explodes, shattering the top of the tree and sending wood shrapnel everywhere. Tony has to scramble to get the hell out of the way.
"Cap!" he yells into his 'comm. "Where the hell are you? We need you!"
"I'll be there in ten, Tony. I'm going as fast as I can."
"Ten? We're not gonna last five. Put your foot in it."
Because it has become very apparent that two of them can't handle Hulk, not when he's like this.
Thor's still trying anyway: from the ground behind a massive tree, Thor hurls Mjolnir up at Hulk's head. Hulk ducks out of the way, the movement almost casual.
The hammer streaks back to Thor, who catches it and launches off the ground in one fluid-looking motion. But instead of flying at Hulk's head, he flies at Hulk's knee, and this time Hulk isn't fast enough to stop him.
Green Guy howls in pain as his leg buckles and Tony uses that moment of distraction to fly up behind him, meaning to ram right into the side of Hulk's head and knock him out.
That's the plan, anyway.
Not a good plan, because Hulk's reflexes a just that quick. He flicks out a massive fist and punches Tony away. Tony flies off, spinning wild and out of control, flapping his arms and legs to right himself. Only with judicious use of his repulsors is he able to pull of his tailspin.
He rights himself just in time to see Hulk hurl Thor into a tree hard enough to crack the trunk.
Deja fucking vu, he thinks, when Thor lands hard and doesn't move.
Tony takes a breath and zips in, meaning to try another missile.
Makes a huge fucking mistake, though, and gets too close, because suddenly a pair of green hands pluck him right out of the air. Instead of hurling him away, though, those close around his chest and begin to squeeze, and all of a sudden Tony can't even draw enough breath to tell JARVIS to fire, and, wow, what a fucked up way to die.
There is nothing in Hulk's eyes right then that suggests Bruce is even in there. The only thing Tony can see is that other and all his inchoate fury.
And Thor's still down.
And those hands are just fucking squeezing, and he can feel the suit starting to give a little, the metal buckling and twisting and groaning under the strain.
With no warning whatsoever, though, the temperature around them plunges like they've been thrown into the middle of an iced-over lake. Tony's HUD registers a familiar energy signature.
Loki's.
Hulk roars and tosses Tony to the ground. Which is totally okay, as far as Tony's concerned, because, hey, oxygen. In his lungs. Can't beat that. He's pretty much content to lay in his heap and kind of ignore everything else for a while and take some gasping, wheezing breaths, and not even worry that his suit's a little – maybe a lot – mangled.
At some point, he lifts his head and he sees a pair of black-clad legs standing in front of him.
Loki, he realizes again, and man, talk about good timing.
The big guy is blue again. He's holding that glowing cube in his hands, but nothing is really happening. Once or twice, it fires off a stream of solid ice. Then nothing. Then a little more ice. Then nothing. There's a fair bit of ice around Hulk's feet and legs, and he's in a full-voiced rage right there, arms wheeling as he he tries to keep from falling over.
Loki actually shakes the cube – like that's gonna help – and makes the mistake of taking his eyes off Hulk, who manages to tear one of his feet free form the ice.
One meaty green fist shoots out and snags Loki by the throat. Loki drops the cube and his skin goes from frozen blue to just sort of gray-I-can't-fucking-breathe-blue.
Tony, reacting on nothing but instinct, scrambles to his knees. "Target his hand," he tells JARVIS. "One round each. Fire."
His munition weapons rise from his shoulders and lock on. There's a single shot and Hulk howls. He flings Loki Tony's way, and Loki – who is wearing no armor whatsoever – lands right on top of Tony. It's an untidy sprawl of limbs, and it takes them a lot longer than it should to untangle themselves.
And Hulk is right fucking there.
Tony's fast, but Loki's faster. Somehow, he has the cube again. This time, the ice comes out a little bit more solidly, but still in fits and starts. Hulk backs up, bellowing, hands flailing at the ice assaulting him. Tony remains crouched down right behind Loki, not quite daring to move for fear he'll wreck Loki's concentration. Loki's whole body is shaking with the effort.
Mjolnir comes flying out of nowhere and finally – finally – puts an end to the whole crazy thing when it crash lands right over the back of Hulk's head, just a solid wham, and Hulk goes down face-first into the grass. He doesn't move.
Loki waves the cube out of existence, and goes down to his hands and knees , breathing hard. The blue in his skin fades into his more natural human tones, which exposes vivid dark bruises down the entire column of his throat.
"Remain where you are, Thor," he rasps, and when Tony lifts his head he sees Thor standing maybe fifteen feet away, watching them.
Loki makes his way to his feet, slowly, and then turns to offer Tony a hand up. "Are you injured, Stark?"
"I'll live," Tony wheezes as he's hauled vertical. His chest hurts like something stomped on it, like he's been put into a vice a couple of times, but there are no funny hitches or grinds when he tries to breathe. "Nothing broken. What about you?"
Fatigue-dull green eyes study him for a long moment, assessing, before they cut away. "I will heal."
Tony nods and turns Thor's direction. "You okay?"
"I have survived worse," Thor replies. Blood is slow-trickling from a gash in his forehead, he has a few cuts on his hands, and his armor's about as dented as Tony's, but he looks all right otherwise. "Loki-"
"You are not taking me back to Asgard," Loki cuts him off. Whispers, really. "Do not even try me."
Thor raises his chin. "So you are speaking to me now," he says. "Why did you refuse to do so before?"
"For no other reason than to see your faces when I refused to give you the explanation you so desired." he says. "It angered you. That amused me."
Thor's eyes widen and he darts a sharp look Tony's way, who for once manages to exercise a degree of self-control and not say 'I told you so.' Except – yeah, it's kind of scary how well he nailed that one.
All of a sudden, the Big Green Meanie begins to shrink down into something a hell of a lot less green and a hell of a lot more Bruce-shaped. There's a thin trickle of blood oozing down the back of his neck, the sigh of which makes Tony wince.
Green guy does all the bad shit, while Bruce takes all the damage.
What a fucking world.
He toggles his 'comm. "Hey, Cap, we got him. You can, uh, you can stand down."
"Copy," Steve says. "Sorry, Tony. I was almost there."
Probably had to stop and help an old lady cross the street or something, Tony thinks, which might actually be funny except he can completely see it happening. "It's okay," he says. "We'll meet you back at the mansion."
When Tony rejoins As The Aesir Turn, Thor is staring at Loki, a cautious frown shading troubled eyes. Loki staring back, wary but calm.
"What are you doing here, Loki?" Thor asks. "What game is this you're playing?"
"I can't just happen to have been in the area?" Loki asks all mock-innocence. Tony snorts, because, yeah bullshit. Loki shoots him an amused glance and a small smile. "There is no game," he tells Thor. "I am playing at nothing. I was in the area. I saw the beast, and I came to investigate. Nothing more to it than that."
"Why were you in the area?"
"Not your concern." He does not look Tony's way whatsoever, but he doesn't have to.
Fucking stalker.
"But you decided to help us?" Thor says, and he sounds incredulous.
"Actually, I came go cheer the beast on," Loki says with a shrug. "He looked as though he was having a great deal of fun knocking you around. But, unfortunately, he caught me. I had no choice but to preserve my own skin. You don't think I'd help you willingly, do you?"
Tony literally bites his tongue to keep from laughing. That wouldn't be good
Watching Loki openly lie to Thor like this shouldn't funny, except it kind of is because there's nothing really malicious about it. There's little, if any, mockery in his tone, which, despite the wheezing voice, is relatively light. Tony wouldn't dare call it teasing, but that's not far off. And Thor might not be the brightest crayon in the box, it's pretty obvious from his almost-smilethat even he knows he's being played.
"I do not know what to believe of you," he says at last. He steps closer, expression sobering. "What did you do with that Mephisto creature?"
Loki shoots Tony a quick, questioning look. Tony shakes his head, just a quick back-and-forth jerk by way of reply.
Of course he hadn't told any of the others what Loki had said about Mephisto being dead. Why would he, when he'd have to answer yet more questions about why he'd been alone in a room with Loki in the first place?
Raising an eyebrow, the beginnings of a smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth, Loki glances over at Thor. "He's dead, Thor. Never again to trouble you. Now, if you'll excuse me..."
"You know I have been ordered to return you to Asgard."
"Yes." All traces of humor vanish, and Loki goes cold, his glare icy and defiant. "I am not going back."
And before Thor can get a word in edgewise, Loki lifts his hand and...
...scowls down at it when nothing happens.
"Problem?" Tony can't help asking.
Loki ignores him. He takes an audible breath, closes his eyes, and, finally, vanishes, leaving a confused Tony and Thor staring at each other over Bruce's still-unconscious form.
"Was that weird?" Tony asks. "That was weird."
"It was strange, yes," Thor admits. "But I sensed no ill intent."
"Yeah, me neither. Huh. How about that."
"Yes," Thor says. A narrow glance Tony's way, eyes shadowed by a frown. "What I find strange is how, once again, he managed to come to your aid when you were in trouble."
Of course Thor would pick up on that.
"Yeah, that is weird," Tony says, frowning. "I don't know what it's all about. But, hey, can't exactly complain. He did kind of save my ass. Of course, I saved his, too, so...yeah. I don't know." There's no way this conversation is going to end any other way than with a giant, awkward thud, so he shrugs and says, "We should get Bruce back to the mansion before Steve comes looking for us."
Because that seems like the thing do to. Getting away from here and not having this conversation, that's the right thing to do.
Thor looks at him for a long time, like he's at a museum staring at one of those weird paintings that was titled something like "Epiphany" and was basically just a canvas painted green. It's pretty clear he's got questions, but, much to Tony's relief, he doesn't ask them. All he does is force a smile as he says, "We should return."
Tony releases a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Yeah," he says. "I'll carry him. Race you."
"That's hardly fair," Thor says. "Even were you not carrying him, you would be no match for me."
"That sounds like a challenge."
"For you, perhaps."
Chuckling, Tony bends to scoop the still-unconscious Bruce up. "When everything settles down here," he calls over to Thor, "you're on, big guy."
"Shall we wager, then, Man of Iron?" a grinning Thor asks.
"Sure, what the hell?" Tony replies. "What do you have in mind?"
"I will think on it. Some future claim, perhaps."
"Fair enough."
Because just when he thinks his life has gotten just as surreal is it possibly can, he goes and makes a bet with a god.
And why not? Thor's hammer is pretty awesome, but there's really no limit to the ways in which Tony can trick out his suit between now and then. His technology versus Thor's magic.
No way his suit doesn't win.
Chuckling, he kicks off the ground.
Bruce doesn't stir at all on the way back.
xXx
There's a helicopter in the mansion's back yard.
There is a helicopter and what looks like a giant fucking fish tank in the mansion's back yard.
And Steve is standing with Nick fucking Fury right next to the tank.
Tony, his good humor gone, is fuming by the time he touches down. He sets Bruce down on the ground at his feet, and hears, rather than sees, Thor approach behind him.
Steve, back in his khakis and tee shirt , approaches, eyes wide and anxious. "Holy cow! Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah," Tony says, as Thor says, "Yes."
"Guys like you look went through a meat grinder!" Fury says, ambling up behind Steve.
Tony glares at Steve. "What's going on here, Cap?"
"I called in a favor after Hulk went after Clint," Steve says. He doesn't quite manage to look Tony in the eyes. "I just wanted to be ready in case something else happened. And I knew S.H.I.E.L.D. had the means. We don't."
"Yeah? So what is that?" He points at the structure. It's a cube, about eleven feet on each side, made of thick clear material. The walls look like they're fifteen, eighteen inches thick.
"That," Fury says, "is a containment box. For him." He flicks his chin at Bruce. "We built several of them. Figured we'd need them at some point. Consider this one my housewarming gift. That, and these." He holds out a small black case to Tony.
Tony takes it and pops it open. There are a half-dozen small vials inside, and a half-dozen syringes. He casts Fury a quick, questioning look. "Please tell me these are sedatives."
"Industrial strength sedatives," Fury affirms. "Quarter of a vial and he shouldn't be able to go green for around twenty-four hours. He'll spend most of it asleep. Watch your doses. No more than one in a forty-eight hour period. Otherwise you'll send him into a coma."
Tony eyes the vials. "What is it?"
"That's classified," Fury says blandly. His eye glitters with secret amusement.
"Have you guys even had a chance to test this out on him?" Tony asks, frowning. "What does it do? How does it work? How do you even know it works?"
Fury shoots him a narrow-eyed, thin look. "We know, Stark, because we tested it on him three months ago. He volunteered."
"I talked him into it, actually," Steve puts in, and he's still pretty sketchy about looking at either Tony or Thor. "He thought it was a good idea, just in case something like this ever happened."
"And why are we just now finding out about this?"
"Well, we haven't needed it until now," Steve points out. "Have we? Look, just be grateful we have anything at all." He glances at Fury, and says, in tones of the earnest Boy Scout he is, "Thank you, Director. I mean that."
"Don't thank me," Fury tells him. "I'm taking his blood. We're gonna start testing it ASAP."
"No," Tony says. "No, you're not."
Steve turns to him. "Tony-"
"No, I said," Tony says over him. "You want to bring us this stuff, fine. That's your choice. Hell, I even appreciate it. Thing is, that doesn't give you carte blanche to come in here and start taking whatever you want. We are not property. We don't even work for you. And we damn sure don't need you. If we want your help on this, we'll ask. But right now, there's not a thing your people can do that JARVIS can't. We will handle the testing, and we will copy you in on the results. Then we'll go from there."
Saying this, he moves to put himself between Bruce and Fury. To his surprise, and gratitude, Thor stands beside him, massive arms crossed over his chest.
Fury inclines his head. "He did ask for our help," he says, jerking his thumb at Steve. "It ain't free."
"Yeah, well, he wasn't speaking for all of us," Tony says.
"Indeed, he was not," Thor puts in. "You take nothing from Bruce Banner."
That vein in Fury's forehead starts pulsing, and his good eye widens like it's about to pop out of his skull. "Fine," he says, teeth baring into a kind of feral grin. It's a little wild, a little scary, and a lot dangerous. "If that's how you want to play this, that's how we'll play it. For now." He glances over at Steve. "Keep me in the loop."
"We will," Steve says.
Fury shoots Tony one last one-eyed glare before he books it on back to his chopper.
As soon as Fury's out of earshot, Steve rounds on Tony and Thor. "What was that?" he asks. "He was offering to help us."
Tony ignores that. "Steve, you need to figure out who you're working for," he says. "Because it's either us – independent of them – or it's them. You can't have it both ways."
"Why not?" Steve asks. He sounds bewildered. "It's not that simple. We need them. We needed them today. Their resources."
"You don't think given a little time Bruce and I could have figured something out? You do realize we're two of the smartest guys on the planet, right? And problems like this? Right up our alley." Which, okay, might or might not be true, but that's not even the point. "And while we're on the subject of smart ideas and stupid ones, giving S.H.I.E.L.D. a way to control Bruce? Not exactly your best idea."
"It's not controlling him-"
"You put this shit in a tranquilizer dart, and you can pretty much guarantee you're going to stop him in his tracks. So, if, for example, we caught Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D. doing something they shouldn't be, and we decided to fight them, well, hey, now they have a way to take out one of our biggest weapons. Or, uh, say somebody in S.H.I.E.L.D. gets a wild hair and decides to go rogue, and on their way out the door, they steal that stuff. Say they decide to sell it. Now a bunch of our enemies have it. Things have been stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. before. Or have you already forgotten the Tesseract?"
Steve closes his mouth and shakes his head. Wipes his hands on his trousers. Breathes out hard. "It was Fury's idea," he says, "not mine."
"But you went along with it. Hell, you just said you talked Bruce into it."
"I – yeah, but I didn't think..."
"You didn't think, what, they'd have some ulterior motive? This is S.H.I.E.L.D. we're talking about. They can't even go for a cup of coffee unless there's some international conspiracy involved. I think it's in their manual." Tony forces himself to unclench his fists. "Look, all I'm saying is you either report to him or you take the reigns on our little team. Because I'm not going to work with you if I can't trust you not to go running to Fury every time we have a problem."
"Even if he might be able to help?"
It's Tony's turn to take a deep breath. "I'm not saying we don't ever work with him," he says. "I'm just saying it should be a team decision. Not just you running off."
"You're one to talk about running off," Steve retorts.
"Hard as it is to believe," Tony says, "we're not talking about me right now. We're talking about you. Us or them, Cap. That's what it comes down to."
Steve's stormy blues shift over to Thor's. Thor has been watching the exchange like a spectator on the sidelines of a tennis match. Now, however, with the focus on him, Thor shifts and says, quietly, "I do not trust this Fury or his S.H.I.E.L.D.," he says. "He reminds me in some small ways of my father: always hiding his purpose, never being forthright with his motivations, never speaking the full truth. And he only has one eye."
Tony exchanges a confused look with Steve, who shakes his head. "Okay," Tony says. "So do you have something against guys with one eye?"
"My father has only one eye."
"...you're kidding me."
"No. He lost it during the battle at Jotunheim."
"Oh. Back to my question. Problem with one-eyed guys?"
Thor shakes his head, chuckling. "I was simply pointing out a strange similarity between the two. The difference is, my father is also a fair and decent king. This Fury appears to be neither, if he was truly prepared to take something from Dr. Banner that Dr. Banner was in no position to deny him. That is the mark of one who has my father's worst qualities and none of his good ones. That is all I was trying to say."
Steve nods slowly. "So you're with him." He jerks his thumb at Tony.
"No, my friend." Thor reaches over and claps a hand on Steve's shoulder. "I stand with this team. All of them. Behind you."
"Ditto," Tony says. He can tell by the smile that's trying to work its way out that Steve's starting to sway. "Come on, Cap. We need you. And, look, maybe it won't always be pretty and neat the way it might be with Fury, but we will figure everything out as we go."
This is that grownup thing again. How the hell does this keep happening.
Steve, meanwhile, finally smiles. "Okay," he says. "All right. You're right. I-I'm sorry. Just – it's like I told you, Tony, I didn't have anything to back to after our fight with Loki, and-"
"Don't, Cap. I have a feeling we're gonna have plenty to do. Somebody told me not to long ago, 'It's a restless world out there.' Think it's just getting started."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Bruce."
"Yeah, we're gonna have to talk about that, and anything else you might have kept back. And you need to talk to Fury. But – later. We need to get Bruce in his little 'containment' tank there and get him sedated. But I want to get some blood from him first. After that, I'll have JARVIS take a look at the samples, and then-"
"And then you need to get yourself some shut-eye," Steve says. "You look like you're about ready to fall over on your feet."
"...yeah, there's that," Tony mutters.
"Then I suggest we delay no longer," Thor says. He bends down and picks Bruce up, gentle as a mother with a child, and carries him into the containment pod.
Sighing, Tony follows.
xXx
A little over an hour later, he's back in his tower, working away in the lab. Steve had asked him to stick around the mansion, but Tony, still balled-up from everything that had happened, found he'd wanted to be in his own space.
He's not as tired as he expected to be, and once he'd fed JARVIS both samples of Bruce's blood, plus a sample of the so-called sedative to process, he'd decided to get started on yet another round of suit repairs.
Self-repairing armor, he thinks as he's examining all the dents and scratches in his chest piece, would be probably the best upgrade ever. He works on hammering out a few of the dents, and while his hands are busy, his mind starts ticking over the ways he could incorporate some kind of nanotechnology into his armor to-
"Intruder detected on the balcony, sir," JARVIS interrupts at some point.
Tony looks up, blinking. "Loki?" he guesses, and he finds he is not even a little surprised.
Was, in some way, sort of expecting it.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS replies. "Shall I alert the Avengers?"
"No. In fact, until I tell you otherwise, don't even ask me that. Unless he physically incapacitates me in some way. If he does that, then, yes, alert the Avengers. Otherwise, don't bother."
It's not that he trusts Loki; it's just that he doesn't want to have to explain what the hell Loki's doing at the Tower in the first place. And he damn sure doesn't want to have to endure another one of those looks from Thor. Because, yeah, height of awkward right there.
"Is that wise, sir? He is still listed as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most wanted."
"Not wise at all, JARVIS," Tony says. "And I know he is. Just do what I say, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Glad that's settled." He takes the stairs two at a time until he's at the main level. It's not dark out yet, so he has no trouble seeing Loki through the glass, that unmistakable dark figure outlined against a clear blue sky. Casual clothes, still, and it's almost comforting – like it's Loki's way of saying he's not there to fight.
Inasmuch as anything about this can be comforting, anyway.
He pulls open the balcony door and motions for Loki to come in, thinking, yeah, he should probably do the whole 'why are you here' and 'how can I trust you' and 'don't you dare throw me off the roof' thing, but when he catches sight all the livid bruises on Loki's throat and jaw, he decides not to bother. He doesn't have the energy, and he has a sneaking hunch Loki probably doesn't either.
Loki follows him down into the living room and takes a seat in the chair without waiting for an invitation. Tony heads over to the bar, fills up a couple of glasses with some scotch, and carries them over. He hands Loki one glass and sits down on the couch with the other.
"Thank you," Loki murmurs. His voice is stronger than Tony expected. And Tony's surprise must have shown, because Loki says, "It looks worse than it is. The internal damage has mostly healed. This-" he gestures at his throat "-is merely superficial."
"Healed," Tony says. "You mean you're healing yourself? Like with magic?"
"Yes."
"Huh. I didn't know you could do that."
Loki hedges, shrugs. "I am no healer, but as long as my reserves are relatively strong, I can use magical energy to augment my body's own natural healing process."
Tony nods. "So it just speeds it up. That's handy." Something he wouldn't mind having, that's for sure, since he's nothing but aches and pains.
"It has its uses," Loki says, and his tone is a mite dry. "Of late, particularly."
"Yeah, I bet." Tony sits back and props his feet up on the edges of his coffee table, hands dangling between his knees. "So, ah, thanks for the help today. But speaking of magic, I'm guessing you 'forgot' to take your magical tracker-thingy out of me. Or are you just gonna admit you're stalking me?"
"I was not stalking you," Loki says. "In all honesty, I did forget."
And it's either Tony's imagination, or Loki actually looks a little sheepish: a little smile that's just this side of embarrassed, a lowered head, and a lidded glance.
"My ass," Tony snorts. Because it's either that or let himself get suckered in by that big-eyed look.
Fucker.
"I did," Loki insists. "Things escalated rather more quickly than I expected, and I was distracted afterward. I forgot. Fortunately," he adds, his expression sobering, "as it turns out. Had I not remembered and come to remove it from you this afternoon, you would likely not be sitting here."
"I know," Tony mutters. He drains almost half his glass at a gulp. It is a horrible waste of such good scotch, his conscience nags him, but he needs it. He really does. Hell of a day. Seems like there's been way too many of those lately. Too many close close calls and near misses.
"I know," he says again, draining the rest of his glass. "I do appreciate the help, though." He clears his throat, rolling the empty glass between his fingers. "So, um. You're here again. Did you – was there something you needed? To talk about," he adds belatedly, wincing.
That won't give him the wrong idea. Jesus.
Loki doesn't smile, though; doesn't even appear to have noticed. He's thousand-yard-staring at the floor in front of him. "I do have something, yes," he says. "The beast."
"Hulk. His name is Hulk."
"Yes, I know."
Loki lapses into silence, and Tony, frowning, finally prompts, "So what about him?"
"Oh. Yes." Loki rouses himself, takes a long sip from his glass, and looks at Tony again. He sounds more like himself when he says, "Something is amiss with the beast."
"Oh, you think?"
"Stark." Impatient, clipped. "Something is amiss with the beast. What, I cannot say, but I suggest you investigate, if you haven't begun to do so already."
"You can't say, or you don't know?" Tony questions. "There's a difference."
"I cannot say because I do not know," is the brusque reply. Loki draws breath as if to say something else, but lets it out in a quiet sigh. Shakes his head and shoots Tony a short look. "He seemed a completely different animal. How did this escape your attention?"
"It didn't," Tony snaps. "I know something's wrong, and I'm looking into it as we speak. Just – this whole thing literally fell into my lap six hours ago. Kinda spent most of that time trying not to get my head kicked in. So if there's anything else you can add, then do." He lifts his chin. "Maybe you can start with what happened to you out there. Your magic."
He's thinking of two things in particular: Loki's apparent difficulties with the cube-thing, and his later difficulties with the disappearing thing.
Loki glances toward the window, lips pursed. "It may not be connected, but something was interfering with my magic." His face is tight as he says this, and he does not look around. "I could feel my magic, but I could not reach it without a great deal of effort. It reacted slowly when I did reach it, and, as you saw, its effects were muted."
"...huh," Tony mutters, blinking.
If he just heard what he thinks he did, if Loki's implying what Tony thinks he's implying...
...then the Avengers' biggest enemy just gave them a way to fight him. Maybe to stop him.
Knowingly.
Provided they can figure out what the hell was interfering with his magic to begin with.
Loki, his jaw still tight, turns back to look at Tony. His eyes are flinty-cold. "You're welcome."
Tony, remembering that was the look on Loki's face when he'd thrown Tony out the window, decides not to even react. Instead, he says, "So maybe I just need to go back to where we were fighting and get some readings. And around the mansion. Maybe it's something in the air. Is your magic reacting normally now?"
Loki holds out a hand, palm up. Stares at it. Begins to frown after a beat. A weak green flame flickers alight over his fingers, bobs and weaves like like a drunken prizefighter, and then winks out of existence. "Hmm," Loki murmurs. "Odd."
"I take it that's a no."
"I had no trouble before I arrived here. Or there."
"Were you in the city?"
"Yes, but nowhere near here."
Tony nods. "JARVIS, run a scan. Here and at the mansion. Look for anything unusual in the air – radiation, chemicals, any kind of foreign substance, anything at all, no matter how trace an amount. While you're at it, check the water supply. I doubt that's the cause, but check it anyway."
"Yes, sir," JARVIS replies, and then adds, apropos of nothing, "This will take some time to complete."
"Uh. Okay. How long?"
"Several hours, sir, at least. You should have sufficient time for another tryst-"
"Whoa! Mute!" Tony yelps. "Just do the scan and let me know when it's done!"
And, yeah, wow, what the hell?
In the first place, since when does his AI decide he needs to get laid? And in the second place, just how does his AI decide how long it'll take? And in the third place, why the hell would his AI even point something like that out at all?
It's beyond disturbing.
He really can't help glancing over at Loki, though. It's impossible not to.
Because as alarming as JARVIS's comment had been, it was also kind of funny.
Loki is all clear-eyed amusement, a smile that is decidedly not a smirk, thank God, and quirked eyebrows. "Sufficient time for another tryst?" he says. "Your machine knows you well, Stark."
"Yeah, not happening." Tony sits back and crosses his arms. Means it, dammit. One and done. That was it. "You didn't take your tracker off me."
Loki's mouth thins. "As I said, it slipped my mind."
"And so what? You just so happened to remember it this afternoon, right when Hulk was about to crush me to death? Yeah. Bullshit."
"Oh, I got there earlier," Loki admits, his smile reemerging. "I was rather lacking for things to do this afternoon when I remembered that I had yet to remove that magic from you. I arrived in time to see you corner the beast in the field. I simply chose to remain out of sight to avoid my – to avoid Thor."
Tony actually laughs at that. "So you were bored."
"Yes, and it turns out things around you are seldom boring."
"Magnet for trouble, all I can say."
"That you are," Loki says with a surprisingly self-deprecating smile. He sets his glass down and rises. "I'll remove my magic from you now, shall I?"
"Oh. Yeah. That – you should do that."
Loki motions him over. "This will be easier with physical contact, given my current...difficulties."
Tony drops his feet to the floor, stands, and deposits his empty glass on the table. He moves to stand just inside arm's reach. "Not gonna hurt, is it?"
"You should feel nothing." Loki settles a hand on Tony's chest, just to the left of the arc reactor. A bare moment later, Loki withdraws his hand. A tiny golden flame dances on his palm until he curls his fingers loosely around it. When he opens them again, the fire is gone.
"That was it?" Tony asks. "You could find me with just that?"
"I could, yes."
"Huh." He will never admit it, not aloud, but in a very creepy way, that is actually sort of cool.
Definitely better to have it gone. Definitely.
Loki, meanwhile, is staring at the arc reactor, the outline of which is visible through Tony's tee shirt. "What does this do?" he asks, one finger tapping the edge.
"Um." Tony backs away and looks at him, considering. Instinct and common sense scream at him not to answer. It's the worst kind of bad idea, stupid beyond all measure. To give Loki that kind of information is to hand him a loaded gun and say 'fire away.'
But.
There are things.
Like that he's pretty sure Loki has saved his ass more than he has saved Loki's. Like that Loki had just volunteered that his magic is susceptible to being blocked. Like that he has this feeling – call it a hunch – that Loki doesn't actually want to kill him.
Like maybe he can use this to get some more information.
Knowledge. Keys to the universe. That kind of thing.
He grabs his glass, heads back over to the bar, and tops off. Drink in hand, he returns to the couch and sits down, motioning Loki to do the same. Loki, green eyes like one-way mirrors that reflect everything and reveal nothing, retreats to the chair and sits, origami neat.
Tony takes a long drink. The alcohol's burn settles him, steadies his nerves, shores up his courage. His voice is more even than he expects when he says, "I'll tell you what it does if you'll answer a question for me. Just one. Honest answer."
Loki's sudden frown carves grooves in his forehead. "I'll not divulge my plans to you-"
"Wasn't gonna to ask that," Tony says over him. Much as he might like to. "Something else I've been wondering about."
There's a beat of a pause during which Loki studies him again, intent and curious. "Very well," he says at last. "Tell me what that device does, and I will answer your question."
"It's an electromagnet," Tony replies gruffly. "Keeps a bunch of metal fragments from getting into my heart and killing me. Shrapnel from my own weapons." He pulls in a breath. "Why do you turn blue?"
There's not even a flicker of an eyelid. "That is my natural state. When I am magically drained and cannot maintain this glamor, or when I work with magics from the place of my birth, I revert."
"So you're…? Right. Okay. So this is your monster?"
"...yes. How did the metal fragments get into your heart?"
"A man who was like a father to me paid a terrorist group to kill me. He betrayed me. The men blew me up with my own weapons. Do you hate your father more for not telling you or for telling you they were monsters?"
"The former. They aremonsters. The man who betrayed you – did you hate him?"
"Yes. No. It's – complicated. Yes. I did. Why do you hate Thor so much?"
"I don't hate him. I only wanted to be his equal in Odin's eye. I know now that was a vain wish. That is what I resent. That, his interference, and the drivel he spews about us still being brothers. In short, I wish nothing to do with him. Did you kill the man?"
"Yes. Do you want to kill Thor?"
"I do not wish to, but that does not mean I wouldn't. Did killing the man bring you peace?"
"No, but I wasn't trying to kill him. I just wanted to stop him. Do you want to kill us?"
"I will if I have to. But only then. Killing is a messy business, and it tends to bring about rather unpleasant consequences. I'd rather avoid it altogether if I can. Why do you not stay with the other Avengers?"
"I'm not a team kinda guy. Need my own space. How the hell do you know I'm not staying there?"
"You are here, they are not. You are part of that so-called team, are you not? Why would you require your own space?"
"Because I think better here than I do with other people around. Less distractions. Do you feel any remorse – at all – for the people you killed?"
"Stuck on killing. Yes, I do. I regret that it had to come to that. I would perhaps choose otherwise if I could. But if given no other choice, I would do it again. Does that surprise you?"
"That you regret doing it? Yes. That you'd do it again? No. Is that the truth?"
"Yes. Do you believe it?"
"I don't know. Maybe. No. Does it matter?"
"No. It changes nothing. Would you believe me if I told you I have no desire to kill you?"
"I shouldn't, but – yeah. Yeah, I believe it. But that's only because you still want me, right?"
"Yes. As you do me, if I'm not mistaken...?"
"I – fuck. Yes, I do. What happened to 'that is the end'?"
"I was only referring to that evening. As I recall, you were the one who said it could not happen again. You wish it to, do you not?"
"No. No, I don't. No."
"You're lying."
"…yeah, I know. Why me?"
"Why not you?"
"You can't answer a question with a question."
"You broke the rules when you lied. You lost. Therefore, the game is over. But, to answer your question, I find the idea of a clandestine affair with one of you Avengers quite amusing, particularly one that occurs right under Thor's idiotic nose. That, and you are one of the few mortals I have encountered who has managed not to bore me to tears. Would it perhaps put your mind at ease to know that I have no immediate plans to put you and yours in any danger?"
"No immediate plans."
"I cannot speak for the long term."
"So what are you saying?"
Loki leans forward and rests his forearms on his thighs, gaze intent and heated. "I am saying, Stark, that I desire you. You desire me. We are currently at a cessation of hostilities between us. Why not take advantage of that?"
Tony blinks. "What, just like that?"
"While we can, yes."
Tony doesn't answer. The thing he can't get over is how nuts this is. How ridiculous. How just completely off-the-wall crazy. In the middle of everything else that's going on, on top of all this day's bullshit with Bruce and Clint and everything else, Loki just shows up and drops this one.
God, he can't even begin to count the ways it is a bad idea, how big a hypocrite this makes him, and how fucking stupid he is for even entertaining the idea.
But this, the little game of conversational volleyball with a guy who will probably wind up killing him someday, had felt a hell of a lot better than it should have. Getting all that stuff out there without having to deal with sympathy and without having to be sympathetic, it feels like he's sloughed off a layer of dead skin, shed some dead weight, got rid of some baggage.
He wants it. That's the thing. Bad idea or not, wrong or not, he wants this thing with Loki, however brief and fleeting, if only for the release.
Maybe it's just another temporary, hollow escape, but so what?
He offers Loki a thin smile and says, "They'll probably arrest me for treason if they find out about this."
"Probably. It won't stop you, though."
"No. No, it won't."
"Sufficient time for a tryst indeed," Loki muses. His smile is all want, shot-through with something dark that sears through any resistance Tony may have had.
If it feels a little like giving up when he leads Loki into the bedroom, well, so what?
So what?"
xXx
Rough sex in three-quarter time. Same steps as before.
And it's just right.
Loki leaves after their second round again.
And that's just right, too.
xXx
Tony wakes up late the next morning, body aching and bruised all over – souvenirs from every battle he fought outside this room, and in it.
Feels clear-headed, though, for the first time in ages. Less tired than usual, too.
"JARVIS, what time is it?" he asks, sitting up.
"It is ten oh-four, sir," JARVIS replies.
"Why the hell didn't you wake me up?"
"You were actually sleeping, and as you do that so rarely, and since the scans turned up nothing conclusive, it seemed a better choice to allow you your rest."
Which, okay, is almost touching, in a weird way, but no less annoying. "Scans. Okay. Did you find anything?"
"I found instances of several unusual compounds, low levels of radiation, and several chemicals – all of which appear to be out of place. I do not have enough information, however, to narrow it down further, sir."
"What about the blood? Anything turn up?"
"No, sir."
Tony nods. "All right. Download the results to my work in progress file." He tosses the covers aside, climbs out of the bed, and wanders, zombie-like, out to the kitchen. The coffee pot is ready and waiting for him. "Nobody called, did they?"
"Miss Potts called approximately two hours ago. She left an urgent message."
Tony pauses in the act of pouring his coffee. "Okay, new rule: if Pepper calls ever, you tell me. I don't care if I'm unconscious or bleeding to death or in the middle of having sex. If she calls, you let me know immediately."
"Understood, sir," JARVIS replies primly. Sounding wounded, for Christ's sake, and Tony is never, ever giving a machine this kind of personality again. "Shall I play the message?"
"Yeah."
Pepper's voice fills the room. "Hey, Tony, it's Pepper. I really need you to call me. It's important. I found something about the girl. You were right – you were set up, and I think I can prove it. And you are really not going to like this. So call me as soon as you can. We need to get together and talk."
"Oh, shit," Tony says, grinning. Because that is seriously the best news he's had in weeks. "Call her back, JARVIS."
As he's standing there waiting for the call to connect, Tony suddenly gets this weird sinking feeling. And somehow, just because it's the way things have been lately, somehow he just knows she isn't going to answer. Something's happened. Something's wrong. Because everything – everything – lately has gone so fucking wrong, and-
"Tony?" Pepper's voice comes over the speaker, calm and clear.
Tony has to clutch the edge of the counter to keep from sagging. "Pepper," he says, and he doesn't even try to keep the relief out of his voice. "Hi. How – uh, how are you...?"
"I'm fine, Tony," she says, and he can just picture her giving him that odd little frown. "Is everything okay? You sound..."
"I – yeah," he says. "I'm just glad you answered, is all."
"Why wouldn't I? I've been waiting all morning for you to call me back."
"It has been one hell of a day," Tony admits. He eases down onto the nearest stool, props his elbow on the counter, and lowers his forehead into his free hand. His coffee sloshes as he sets the cup down, and he hisses as the liquid scalds him. "So you said you had news?"
"Yeah," she says. "But it's not the kind I really want to give you over the phone. Are you at the Tower right now?"
"Yeah, but I really need to get back to the mansion. I've got a situation with Hulk that I need to start looking into, like, yesterday. Can you meet me over there instead of here in a couple hours?"
And at some point, he'll have to get over to the hospital to see Clint, too.
Probably should go there first.
"I can," she says. "I'm going to bring Cecil with me, if that's all right. He's got some things he wants to go over with you, too. You didn't tell me somebody stole arc reactor plans."
"Yeah, it didn't even cross my mind," Tony admits. "Just tell me one thing, though: who set me up?"
There's a bit of a pause, then: "Promise me you don't do anything until we have chance to talk to you face-to-face?"
He rolls his eyes. "I won't."
"We think," she says, "that it was your very own COO-turned-acting-CEO."
Thomas Andrews, that skinny, reedy little bastard, and of course it is, Tony thinks, because of fucking course somebody in his own goddamn company would fuck him over.
It's the story of his whole fucking life.
Fury like a tornado, twisting and racing through him as his fingernails dig into his palms and his knuckles ache and the back of his neck throbs like it's being squeezed in a vice. He's pretty sure he could out-Hulk Hulk, and probably without trying.
Not that he particularly wants to test that theory, but Jesus Christ he's getting tired of not having anybody around he can actually trust.
"Tony?" Pepper prompts. "You still there?"
"Still here," he bites out. "Son of a bitch. I am going to-"
"-do absolutely nothing, just like you promised," she cuts him off in that scary Pepper-is-God voice that has him cringing and covering his balls. Good God he misses her. "And that's not all, by the way," she adds, "but I'll save it for when I see you. Two hours at the mansion?"
"Uh, yeah," he says. "See you there."
"See you," she says, and then she's gone.
"Fuck," he mutters to the empty room. "Fuck me."
He climbs back to his feet, coffee forgotten, and heads off to get ready to face the day.
xXx
Back and forth the titans turn their
World to ashes, lightning crashes once upon a
Midnight's turning
Nightmares march on, dreams still burning
One by one by one
–3, "Battle Cry"
A/N: Thanks for reading!