Summary: Tony has to face the music. Part of the Arrangement Series.
So first of all I am very very very sorry for how long this thing has taken to post here. The problem was I was kind of (and by kind of I mean very very) stuck on how I wanted this chapter to go. I finally figured it out though and I might have given up since it was giving me such a hard time except for all your lovely comments that made me want to keep going.
Warning: Tony has a little bit more of a dirty mouth than usual. Just a little bit though.
"I know the number one question on your mind," Tony said to the people he knew were watching him on camera, as well as the few agents that were in the room.
He was an interrogation room with a steel table and an obvious one-way window. He wasn't handcuffed even though he could see from the looks on some of the agents face they wished he was. Technically, he hadn't done anything legally wrong.
He could make an argument for aiding and abetting, but Loki had never used him to evade the law or even eaten his food. For a long time, it had just been wham, bam, thank you ma'am and then a forgetting potion until they had done away with that part. Tony hadn't argued when S.H.I.E.L.D had showed up asking him to follow them or when they had practically kidnapped him.
However, during the quinjet ride over to S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters Tony had decided that he was pretty much done walking on eggshells. He had a crap day and he wasn't going to tread as lightly as he had with his friends. If he stepped on a couple toes, well, they were the ones who had decided to interrogate him.
"A question, that if you had a night to sleep on it would have kept you up," Tony said, bringing his arms up to rest on the table.
He clasped his hands together and paused to build suspense. He wickedly grinned, "Who tops who?"
The genius watched as two of the agents, a man who was slightly taller than himself, who had brown hair, and an agent with darker brown hair grimaced. But, their professional faces S.H.I.E.L.D must teach at the academy came back up. The third agent in the room, who was slightly shorter than Tony, showed nothing.
Stark laughed and said, "Well, it's a very interesting question."
He paused like he was giving it a lot of consideration.
"But, I'm sorry agents, I don't screw and tell."
The two guards seemed somewhat relieved while the third looked slightly disappointed. Tony frowned at him and the blank face came back up.
The silver door to the side of the room slid open silently. A leather duster was the first noticeable thing that came through the door. The second, of course, was the eye patch.
"That's enough of that Stark."
"Fury you're alive. I'm so surprised," The billionaire spoke with a tone and look of mock astonishment. He looked at the three other agents in the room, both Mr. Sense of humor's and the one way too interested in his sex life.
"I'll take it from here." Fury said and the three agents started filing out of the room.
"Fury, I'm surprised at you. You don't talk. You don't write. One might think you were dead- or at least I thought that was what you were supposed to be."
Fury didn't let anything Tony was saying distract him, and continued on with the interrogation.
"Stark, you know what we want," Fury spoke as he sat on the other chair that had been on the opposite side of the table from where Tony was.
"Um- a cheeseburger?" Tony held his hand up, " No wait, you asked what we want so that would be cheeseburgers plural."
"We want information on an unsavory associate of your's."
"Oh he's savory," Tony said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
Fury did not look amused. "Stark, be serious for a moment."
"I don't know. Do you really think I'm capable of it?" Tony asked as sincerely as he could fake.
"Stark!" Fury snapped, bringing his hand down on the table between them, making a loud clang.
"That's not very nice to the table," Tony said in feigned disapproval. But, before Fury could throw him into one of the many holes that he knew Fury had, the brunette decided for a moment to actually be serious.
"I don't know where he lives. Loki always comes to my place, but even if I knew where he lived I wouldn't tell you. You know why? Because I can't be with him if he's in one of your prisons or one of his dad's." Tony said, resolutely folded his arms against his chest.
"I also don't know much about what he does when he's not with me, but I do know other than that one incident three months ago, Loki hasn't attacked this city in over a year."
The attack had only been because Loki had forgotten the reason that he had stopped attacking. The raven-haired being would never have attacked then if he had remembered. The only reason he had forgotten was because of Tony's insistence to forget. So that one was at least partially his fault.
"You say that almost like it's some sort of accomplishment. So what? You think we should say okay, it's fine to attack cities and kill people as long as you don't it for a year afterwards?" Fury said, copying his posture.
"No, of course not. I'm just saying that it's your job to find him not mine and I'm not doing your job for you."
"You know what he's done."
Tony sighed as he had heard that a lot today. It was definitely bothering him.
"Yeah, I know what he's done," Tony said softer. "And I'm sorry, but I can't help how I feel about him even though I know what he's done."
Fury sighed in a why-are-you-always-giving-so-much-trouble kind of way. "Is there anything you will tell us?"
The genius ran everything he knew about Loki through his mind to see if there was something that he could tell Fury and wasn't something that would end up with Loki in one of the holes in this place or back in Asgard. If his dark haired lover got sent to either place, Tony knew it would be nearly impossible to ever see him again.
"As long as he's dating me, I don't think he's going to create any more trouble," Tony said finally.
Fury gave him a do-you-really-expect-me-to-believe-that kind of look.
"You haven't seen him doing anything in several months right?" Tony asked.
"That doesn't mean anything." Fury negated.
Tony knew logically that he had no idea if he was right. Loki could be doing something underground, away from prying eyes. Honestly, the more he got to know him the more he thought that would probably be Loki's style if he were to try to rule the world again. But his gut told him that Loki wasn't doing anything; Loki wouldn't do anything, because of Tony if not for any other reason.
"He's not doing anything," Was all he said aloud. "He's not going to be doing anything," Tony said, ignoring Fury's look of disbelief.
"Look let's just bottom line it." The billionaire said.
As this day had been long enough already, all he wanted to do was fall into bed and forget about the day he had just had. He'd been through an emotional wringer and it was going to be awhile before it eased off. Ideally, he'd like to fall into the bed with Loki but that wasn't going to happen for awhile
"He can teleport. He's good at covering his tracks and I'm not going to help you find him. So you can expend all your time and resources for decades and still not find him. Hell, he can turn invisible and walk right past you and you wouldn't even know it. This one time-" Tony trailed off and his eyes lowered as he realized that Fury wouldn't want to hear about the time Loki had done that in bed.
His eyes darted up again sharply. "Anyways he's hard to catch," He said, feeling his cheeks turn slightly pink. Huh, he thought he didn't embarrass anymore. Guess he was wrong.
"I give a lot of money to aid you guys because I believe, generally," he amended, "in what you do here. Even though you guys have a lot of secrets and I know not everything is hunky dory, I believe that you do some good work. However, if you keep searching for Loki, I'm going to feel a lot less generous."
He looked Fury over for his response. Fury, when he wanted to be, was a bit of a hard nut to crack and his face was completely blank. Still, he was pretty sure that Fury understood what he was saying. Tony wanted to make sure there was no room for misunderstandings.
"So, you can keep looking for Loki, not find him and lose some funding, or you can not look for Loki and gain funding."
Oh yeah, Tony wasn't at all above bribing someone with economic gain, not in the least.
"So, what's it going to be?"
He knew there was really one choice and Fury did not look happy about it. He did not look happy at all. In fact, Tony was pretty sure that if Fury suddenly had the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes, that a lot of people would be dead… and he would be the first one. He would be so very dead. So, it was a good thing that Fury didn't have laser eyes.
"We'll be watching you. Your every movement."
Tony nodded. He knew that would happen. He also knew that it wasn't limited to his physical movement. Anything he did would be looked through with a fine-toothed comb.
"If anything looks out of place-" Fury didn't finish, but Tony heard it for what it was. A threat and a promise.
After a long moment of silence that he was sure was meant to make him sweat, Fury finally spat out.
"Fine," Tony grinned.