A/N: I'm ill right now, and so bored that I'm almost climbing up walls, so this chapter just splurted out of my brain. Nonsensical? Perhaps. This is how I write when I'm not well. But too bad; it was fun to write. Also, a little short. Too bad. Dramatic effect and shit.

Point of order - this is comic!verse Mandarin and Ten Rings. For those who don't know, it means he's the legit evil badass he was pretending to be in IM3.

Chapter 13: Can you relate

The next day, Tony's mounting paranoia drove him to get up early, run a couple of kilometres in the gym, and then dive into researching Justine Hammer and her movements.

What could he say? He had lots of things to worry about.

Steve came down to say hello to Tony while he worked. Tony got him to talk while he worked as something to listen to in the background. JARVIS was a bro, but being an AI meant he didn't tell interesting stories.

Tony reflected idly that his voice wasn't as nice as Loki's.

It was raining outside, so Loki himself was probably curled up somewhere. By the evening, he'd resolved to find Loki and at least keep him company.

Then he remembered Loki wryly telling Tony to buy him a drink before going over his issues, and Tony knew what his project was for the evening. He got JARVIS to call Loki up, if he wanted to come.

"This is an intervention!" Tony declared loudly as Loki came in.

Loki raised an eyebrow, half teasingly, half resignedly. "Which vice this time? The drinking, the smoking, the morphine, the fucking? I swear, I've disposed of all of them," he said jokingly.

"Wait, you've sworn off having sex?" Tony said, disturbed by the very thought.

Loki gestured at his abdomen. "It's painful to make the-" he moved his hips silkily "-motion. Also, people tend to be both repulsed and curious when they see something like that."

Well, Tony knew that feeling. He did have a big glowy metal thing in his chest, after all.

"I'm not," Tony blurted honestly. "It's like a badge of awesomeness."

Loki smiled at that. "It feels more like a debilitating injury, but to each their own."

"Definitely. Here, I'm buying you a drink first," Tony said, sliding a vodka down the bar in Loki's general direction.

"I'm working under the assumption you're taking me up on my offer to drink me under the table until I spill my secrets," Loki said, half-amused.

That implication rankled Tony, and for the first time he was able to put why into words. "No. No. This isn't some kind of paparazzi-curiosity-invasion. This is an intervention. I think you're awesome and it feels like you're just - you're just giving up when you hide in your room like that. Maybe I'm not the best guy to talk to - I've known you for what? Two weeks? And I can barely deal with my own problems - but please. Don't curl up and half die somewhere whenever you're upset. I like to think I'm your friend, so this is a friendly nudge."

Loki looked taken aback. And confused, and wary, and worried, and a whole myriad of other things. Considering that Tony had seen first-hand how good at shoving away facial expression Loki could be, it was a surprise.

"You are my friend," was the first thing he managed to say, and he sounded like he wasn't expecting those words to come out of his mouth.

"Well, then, bud, you might not wanna talk to me, but at least have a seat," Tony said, smiling openly, trying to get Loki to relax.
A little stiffly, Loki made his way over and sat at the bar next to Tony, snatching his vodka on the way past and taking a sip.

They sat there in silence for what felt like hours. The clock insisted it was about a quarter of an hour, but the clock (in Tony's mind) was a lying bitch. Loki seemed to be locked in a mental quandary that required another glass of vodka.

"It was a case of mistaken identity," Loki said eventually, his voice small.

"Hm?" Tony said. His brain had been switched off by the wait.

"Exactly what I said," Loki said. "I was carrying a SHIELD-issue pistol. Nat's pistol, to be exact. I stole it off her years ago in Russia."

Tony wanted to laugh at that, he really did. But it was a time for solemn listening.

"They decided the circumstances of my arrival were suspicious," Loki continued quietly. "Likely there would have been no issue, but their only reference for SHIELD agents was a slightly outdated copy of the SHIELD employment."

The penny dropped for Tony. "They tried to recruit you a year ago," he blurted.

Loki nodded. "The record only stated I was in recruitment, it did not say that I declined the opportunity."

"Oh. Oh shit," Tony said, wondering if Loki would mind a pat on the back or something. He tried, gently patting Loki on his bony shoulder, and Loki gave a weak, tired smile.

"So they assumed I was spying on them, and attempted to discover who for and why," Loki said. "Two weeks later, having gathered no information, they let me go."

"They just let you go?" Tony asked. "No...warnings, no nothing?"

"Oh, no," Loki said, with quite possibly the driest smile Tony had ever seen. "Where'd you think I got this scar?"

He rolled up his jersey and shirt a little, showing the injury on his abdomen. "This was cut at an extremely precise depth, to cut through only skin and muscle while leaving any internal organs intact. Not fatal, just horrifically painful and almost impossible to heal fully. That's enough of a warning for anyone."

Tony was horrified. And fighting off flashbacks. Mostly the latter. He took a few deep breaths and swallowed his drink in one go.

"That explains a lot," he said eventually.

"It does," Loki admitted. "Is your curiosity satisfied?"

"No. What? I just said that wasn't what this was about. I want to help," Tony said.

After a minute, Tony asked a question that (though he wouldn't quite admit it) he wished someone had asked him. It wasn't socially acceptable, at least not by the standards of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but he just - wanted to say it. "You want revenge?"

Loki, again, had that strange, taken-aback look on his face. "Yes," he said, a note of suspicion in his voice. Of course there was; no one half-sane would offer revenge to a clearly fucked-up spy.

"Who did this, then?" Tony asked.

"Client confidentiality," Loki said, but he didn't sound sure of himself.

"I'm not asking who you were working for. Just whose ass you want to kick," Tony said.

Loki refilled his glass and drained it again; he was probably feeling good and fuzzy right about now, and maybe that was the point.

"You may have heard of them; in fact, I believe you have," Loki said, the crooked smile on his face and the showmanship in his voice letting Tony know he was building up to the biggest of reveals. "The Ten Rings, headed by our favourite theurgical delusionist, the Mandarin."

Tony's brain kind of fizzled to a halt for a moment. Then it kickstarted itself, working twice as fast.

The Ten Rings.

"The day I stand on the cold corpse of the Mandarin will be a joyful one indeed," Loki added.

That cliche, the one where the bitter spy sits at a bar and swears revenge on his enemies? That was happening.

The Ten Rings, Tony's brain felt it necessary to point out again.

"You know what, Loki?" Tony's mouth said for him.

"Hm?" Loki said with a strange eagerness.

"I'd like that too."