I'm back!

And I'm so sorry. So, so, so sorry. It's been a really stressful couple of months, and this chapter was the hardest to write by a mile. I can't thank you guys enough for supporting me with your messages here and on tumblr - I'm always torn between laughing and crying when I receive one hoping that I'm not dead. Thank you guys so much - I don't know if I could have done this without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(Also, in my hurry to publish this, I didn't edit it too well, so let me know if you see any glaring errors. Or any little errors. And medium ones are good, too...)

Warnings: The usual

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Onward!

Tony pushed himself upright, gripping the table until he couldn't feel his fingers trembling. He kept his eyes open until they watered, letting the white and silver blur burn the blackness from his mind's eye. The remnant of Loki's terror was acidic on his tongue, sharp and terrible. The memories churned at the edges of his vision, made worse by the fresh remembrance of Loki's rage.

He remembered being nothing. Nothing but a mind and magic, and then being torn-

Tony shuddered, pushing it down, away.

He's stumbled upon something deep and dark and awful. That much was clear. Something involving the Beast of teeth and someone named Thanos, someone that Loki feared. Tony shook his head slightly, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before the black memories stirred. He hadn't thought that Loki was afraid of anyone (except maybe Bruce), which meant that this guy had to be seriously bad news.

Or good news, a small voice piped up. After all, "the enemy of my enemy" and all that…

But the thought of the name put a bad taste in Tony's mouth. A person capable of inspiring that much fear in Loki wasn't someone that Tony would play nice with, he was almost certain.

"JARVIS-" Tony croaked out, only to stop. He somehow doubted that a guy with a name like "Thanos" would be in the phone book.

Sir?

Shaking his head, Tony ran his fingers through his hair, only to throw his hand down with a curse as he realized that the tremors hadn't gone away. "Nothing. Jesus, I need a drink. A big drink. The granddaddy of all drinks."

I would advise a certain degree of restraint in regard to your alcohol intake, JARVIS recommended, but Tony had already pushed himself towards the sink. His dizziness tilted the floor unpleasantly, but he managed to stay on his feet and open the cabinet beneath, groping for glass. The feel of the bottle under his hand was a comfort in and of itself, and the scotch, though room-temperature, was a familiar, calming caress on the back of his throat. He didn't bother trying to find a tumbler for it.

His fingers had stilled by the second swallow, and by the fourth he could close his eyes without panicking. Breathing deep, he shifted mental gears, consciously pushing away the heart-pounding terror and confusion associated with darkness and the memory of Loki's face, stoic and furious and deadly. He was going to pull a mental muscle if he didn't take a step back from all of the unknowns and confront something he could handle. "How bad is it out there?"

You will need to be more specific, Sir.

"Have the guys blamed the whole media fiasco on me yet?" Ordinarily, Tony would dread the answer, but somehow, after comparing it to what he'd been through over the past twenty-odd hours, he couldn't bring himself to care.

The Avengers have not issued an official statement, resulting in a great deal of speculation. Many theories involve alien interaction or cloning.

"Predictable." And relieving. "Is anyone home?"

None of the Avengers have returned home since the press incident.

"Right." Tony took another drink. "I should probably call so Fury won't have me drugged on sight again." (Not that I don't deserve it, he added mentally).

That would be advisable.

Rocking the bottle back and forth, Tony watched the sloshing liquid. For a moment, he felt a pang of genuine worry – he'd probably committed treason at some point or another, and he somehow doubted Fury would let him off easy. "Maybe I'll give it an hour or so. Build up some liquid courage."

That would not be advisable.

"Well, I was only half-asking your opinion," Tony muttered, pressing the bottle against his forehead instinctively to quell his headache. The tepid glass offered little solace.

If you refuse to address the issue of Director Fury, Sir, perhaps you will prefer to contact Miss Potts. She has left twenty-two messages since your media debacle.

Pepper. That would be a fun conversation.

"Not now, JARVIS."

I believe she is quite concerned, Sir.

Tony swallowed his retort. Sometimes he regretted programming JARVIS with a chastising tone. "I know she is."

And it would be cruel to prolong her distress.

"Shut up," Tony grumbled, but it was too late. He could imagine the worry on Pepper's face, deepening every crease and shadowing her eyes, and it made his chest hurt. Waiting wouldn't make it any easier, after all. "Go ahead and call."

Excellent choice, Sir, JARVIS congratulated, suddenly cheery. The nearest screen brightened and displayed the call being dialed. Tony glowered at nothing as he lowered himself gingerly into the nearest chair, counting the rings as the call went through.

Pepper crossed her arms over her chest tightly as she waited on the sidewalk. SHEILD had offered her a ride anywhere she pleased, but after the last fiasco, she preferred to wait for Happy. She would have walked, but she had cargo: Livy's painting rested in its easel at her side. The ruined canvas seemed like a fairly accurate representation of her life.

She could practically feel the knots in her stomach tightening with each minute that Tony was gone. In her handbag, the book she'd found was as obvious as an anvil, daring her to crack it open and find answers for herself – but there was no way she could do that while standing, quite literally, in SHIELD's front yard.

Happy pulled up within minutes, launching questions that she couldn't answer before giving her a rueful half-hug and helping her lift the painting into the rear passenger's seat.

"Where to?" Happy asked, his tone casual. Pepper appreciated it.

"Stark Tower. I need to do some damage control." She grimaced down at her phone. During the hour she'd been at the headquarters, she'd accrued nearly sixty voicemails. "Major damage control."

"You got it."

Pepper was halfway through dialing Andrew's number when her phone buzzed. She let out an exasperated breath through her teeth, meeting Happy's sympathetic look in the rearview mirror, only to let out a strangled gasp when she saw the caller ID.

"Tony?!"

Her voice was so familiar, even at its high-pitched register of panicked joy, that Tony closed his eyes and smiled. "Hey, Potts. Missed you-"

But Pepper's reply came to quickly and loudly to permit any sort of speech on Tony's end of the conversation. "Tony, where on earth have you been? Are you okay? Did Loki hurt you? What happened? How did you get away? Tell me where you are!"

"Easy, Pepper, I'm okay." The floor tried to tilt again, and Tony shut his eyes tight for a moment. "Well, mostly okay. Sort of okay. I mean, you won't find my picture in the dictionary-"

"Where are you? Where did Loki take you? How did you-"

"I'm at the Mansion. Listen, why don't you come over before SHIELD figures out I'm back and comes knocking? I'll explain everything. Pinky-swear."

"Explain? You mean about before?"

Tony's hand stilled on the bottle. "Before what?"

"You promised you would explain everything after the conference –" Tony cursed silently. The mini-meltdown from earlier had slipped his mind. "-but that can wait. I'll be there as soon as I can, not more than fifteen minutes… Tony?"

"Pepper?"

"Are you really okay?"

Tony laughed a little at that, and his thumb followed the path of the delicate, fresh scar on his cheek. "I will be."

Fury leaned over Thor's shoulder, narrowed eyes directed towards the god's piece of paper. "You don't know?" The director sighed. "You've been in this city for months, and you can't think of a single place Loki might've stowed his crazy ass away?"

Thor sent him an acidic look, and the director backed off with a grumble.

"We can't issue a PR statement until we have some clue about what we're up against," he muttered, "and we won't know that until we find Loki or Stark – which is looking pretty damn near impossible – or until Loki makes his move, and by then it'll be too little, too late. C'mon, Thor, give me something. Loki stole his possessions back a few nights ago. Anything in there that could give us trouble? Magical bombs, beans, anything at all?"

Thor was interrupted by a frazzled-looking Maria Hill bursting through the door. 'Director Fury, Sir, Pepper Potts just received a call from Tony Stark."

Fury was on red-alert in a millisecond. "Do we have a location?"

"It wasn't long enough to be traced properly. We only got the lower half of Manhattan." She strode to the table, setting her laptop down and opening it in one fluid motion. "But listen to this."

The Avengers leaned forward simultaneously as Pepper's voice came over the speaker, clear and distraught.

"Where are you? Where did Loki take you? How did you-"

Tony's voice came next, and Bruce exchanged glances with Steve.

"I'm at the Mansion. Listen, why don't you come over before SHIELD figures out I'm back and comes knocking? I'll explain everything. Pinky-swear."

Agent Hill paused the recording, gauging Fury's reaction.

"Any agents in the area?" The Director asked, staring down at the computer.

"One unit on the north edge, another on Seventh. Should I give the orders to move in?"

"Tell them to keep an eye out for Ms. Potts and be prepared to storm the castle. We're heading out now. All of us," he added, glancing around at the assembly. "Now. I don't care if it's Stark or Loki. Getting our hands on either one is our biggest priority. Hill, have a van armed and ready by the time we hit the ground floor."

She nodded sharply and headed for the door with Fury on her heels. The others hurried along behind them.

"Sounds like Tony to me," Bruce said quietly as they crowded into an elevator that seemed matchbox-small. Steve nodded and muttered his assent, looking pale. Fury said nothing, and Bruce added, "What will you do if we find him? More drugs?"

Fury sent him a look, coldly focused. "It's not unlikely."

"Loki would call us, not Pepper. This is Tony we're about to attack."

"Fine by me."

"You heard what Pepper said earlier. Tony told her that he was doing this for the team. We should give him a chance to explain before we give him a reason not to trust us." Bruce insisted.

Clint's laugh sounded like grinding gears. "Trust. That's a good one."

The doors opened, and he was the first one out, followed by Hill, who ran ahead to the front doors.

The others moved to follow her, but Fury's voice brought them up short. "Dr. Banner, maybe you should sit this one out."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Have a little faith, Director. Besides," – in one word, he seemed to age a decade – "you might need the Other Guy if Loki shows up."

Tony ran his fingers over the sides of his bottle, eyes unseeing. Half of his brain was busy calculating how long it would take to get his lab back as it had been prior to the cube incidents. The other half was trying to figure out what to say when he called the team. "Sorry" was probably a must. Maybe a couple verses of "I Had Good Intentions, I Swear" with a refrain of "Loki Made Me Do It".

Then there was that sliver of attention that kept skittering away to Loki, asking over and over again if there was a way to salvage it, if he should bother, if it was too late-

But of course it was too late. Loki had said it a thousand times – Tony was nothing to him. And after seeing his eyes so full of rage and yet so blank, Tony was beginning to believe it.

As he tilted his head back for another long swallow, a familiar green caught his eye. Without thinking, Tony reached out and scooped up the cube, turning it over in his fingers. It wasn't on par with Loki's eyes, but it was close enough. A familiar weight to settle into his stomach, gaining density as Tony's thoughts shifted to what he had seen.

Sir? Sir, Miss Potts has arrived.

Tony shook himself and blinked at the digital clock projected onto the wall.

"Seven minutes? Wonder how many laws she broke." Tony wrapped his fingers around his bottle, the equivalent of squeezing a reassuring hand, and headed for the elevator. As an afterthought, he pocketed the cube. "Tell her I'm coming through the elevator."

Belatedly, as the doors slid open into the kitchen, Tony noted that he should have had JARVIS tell Pepper not to freak out about how he looked.

She let out a horrified shriek, taking a step back and then forward. "Oh, God, you-"

"I know – the grunge look makes me look fat." He took a quick sip of scotch before nestling the bottle against his temple again, pretending that it was cold enough to make a difference in the status of his headache.

"For the love of God, Tony, put the alcohol down and- and sit down, you look like a corpse." She darted forward, pulling him towards the stools arranged around the kitchen island. Her voice trembled as she continued, forcing him to sit. "Did he hurt you? Should I get the first aid kit?"

Tony focused on her face as she rattled off questions. Her skin had gotten a few shades paler, and the bags beneath her reddened eyes were nearly blue. She still wore the nice, appropriate clothes from the press conference, though they now looked as though they had been worn for a week straight. Her shoes were missing, and her stockings were riddled with runs.

"Nothing to aid, really," he said slowly. "You haven't slept, have you?

"Nothing to aid? You're white as a sheet, Tony. Don't tell me you're not hurt."

"No more than usual. Actually, I'm touched that you would pull an all-nighter for me."

"Tony," Pepper's voice took a turn for the serious. He could hear the beginnings of her exhaustion tingeing her words. "I'm glad you're here, but you have to talk to me."

"I know. But finding the right beginning sucks, you know that, it always sucks, even when the ending is good. And this one is about as good as the Titanic's was. Just-" He heaved a sigh when her eyes started to drift suspiciously towards the scotch. "I'm not drunk. Just give me a second. It's not like…" he gestured helplessly with one hand, trying to find the right thread to pull to unravel the story. His other thumb grazed the scars on his cheek, and Pepper's eyes followed the motion, going narrow, then wide. "It wasn't-"

"What is that?"

"I cut myself… not-shaving," he answered as she tilted his face towards the light.

"Tony, are those scars?"

There was no time to try to formulate an answer before the massive windows in the living room exploded inward, and a swarm of black-clad SHIELD officers came sweeping into the room, guns aloft. Pepper screamed, and Tony wished he'd had time to have another few drinks.

The wall loomed, still seething with ink. In its center, the broad swath of perfect black seemed to bend and warp, reaching towards Loki where he stood.

Stark had seen into the ragged mess that his mind had once been. Perhaps he had even felt the breath of the beast.

Emotion roiled in Loki's gut: violent rage, cruel satisfaction that Stark had been punished before his crime had even been completed, something akin to bitterness or hurt-

He took in a breath, reaching for control that never came. His hands clenched and unclenched as though they itched to wring the life from Stark's throat. He had no reason to be surprised at the man's actions, no reason to resent him, no reason to be hurt by him. And yet…

Loki's gaze drifted back to the wall. Stark's thoughts bubbled up, trapped within the ink. An idea took root as he watched, and Loki's rage consolidated into an icy, determined mass just above his heart.

Fair is fair, Stark. You invaded my mind…

He moved forward, eyes drifting closed as he pressed his palm into the ink.

…I shall return the favor.

The first things to rise were the shared memories of the void. Loki felt Stark's terror like the rasp of sand, accompanied by a whisper of fire – the echoes of his own wild fear. He brushed them aside with a practiced push, groping deeper.

-doing the right thing, I swear, I had it under control-

Skin glowed white beneath the polluted light of the city and the storm (want answers), his chest rose in silent breaths, as though he faked life (kiss him awake). Loki's control stuttered, and Stark's thoughts pressed against him greedily. The appreciation, the frustration, the anger, the soft, warm, aching something that made Loki rip away.

-not the wolf, not the pawn, not-

The flash of scars in a mirror, the dull ache of compounded bruises, the haze of a memory within a memory. Stark sighed, and Loki felt his way past it, deeper.

-Pepper must be going crazy-

Loki slipped through another layer, finding a boat on a half-fathomed sea. The man in the fisherman's cap made no sense, and there was a bottle in Stark's hand. Meaningless. The ink rippled against his consciousness as he delved past the dream.

-alone-

Loki felt the precise moment when his resolve was set, when he decided to keep his silence. Amora's smirk, the spinning spool of words that she used to weave her web (-Frost Giant, as thought that's supposed to mean something-): Stark did not fall prey to it. His answers were vague, edged in panic and mistrust and the omnipresent wit.

But that wasn't right. Stark had no reason…

Love, she said? No, that wasn't right… but there was a hint of fear, of hesitation, a resurgence of the softness.

-it's not love, dammit, I would know. I would know-

Loki shied away, sinking into another.

Can't lie. Can't lie, fuck-

Fury loomed over him in a room made from whiteness. The director's words were lost in the shuffle of his heartbeat.

-team hates me now. Clint's gonna put an arrow through my eye. So what? I was fine without them before, I'll be fine again. I don't care. I don't-

The blast of emotion obliterated Loki's control.

-what did I do? I swear, I didn't… never heard of any damn seal-

The wind was bitter and knifing. Sunlight streamed over the rooftop. Loki's face was contorted in rage, in fear, and then there were lips on his in a savage press before lifting away, and there was such satisfaction, such joy-

Loki wrenched himself away from the wall and stumbled onto one knee, sweating and gasping. For one awful, lurching moment, all he could feel were Stark's emotions and all he could see were Stark's memories. There were no reserves, no barriers – just pure, blinding emotion carving elation and rage and hope into the insides of his ribs.

But Loki regained control with an internal snap that was almost a stabbing. He forced the sentiment down, away, out of sight and mind. Every last, messy emotion was squashed down into nothing, even the rage he'd felt prior to delving into Stark's mind. Without the roar of blood in his ears and the maelstrom of feeling under his skin, the room was enormous and silent.

Blood trickled over his lip and onto his chin. He didn't remember biting it, but the flesh was torn when he swept his tongue over it. It had healed before he could think about it, and he spared a moment of faint appreciation for the delicate, renewed reservoir of magic that had collected in the pit of his stomach. But it would not last – it never lasted.

Loki pushed himself to his feet, steady despite the tide of thoughts streaming though his mind. He had expected there to be malice in Stark's mind, or at least a hint of vindictiveness. Instead, he had sensed curiosity, anger, frustration, caring. He had been wrong. Stark's accidental discovery had, in fact, been an accident.

He slipped into the shadowy hall. There was no point in preoccupying himself with Stark, not during the slim window he had where Amora was too weak to pursue him. There were preparations to make, runes to mark, enchantments to reinforce.

But he stilled before he reached his supplies as his mind slid backwards. He moved half-consciously, slowly, as though he hadn't yet decided to move towards the chest of drawers in his bedroom. But the topmost drawer slid open easily, and Loki withdrew the single object within.

The cufflink was almost warm beneath his fingers, as though it had been expecting him. As Loki ran his thumb over the engraved initials, he thought he could feel something giving way inside his chest.

"Hold your fire!"

Tony sagged at the voice. "Cap," he turned to face his savior (ignoring the shouted orders from the agents to not move a Goddamned muscle), "You've never looked better."

It was a lie, of course. Steve looked almost as bad as Pepper did. As a matter of fact, all of the Avengers looked rather rag-tag, particularly Thor, whose eye was still swollen and whose arm was still splinted. The god nodded at him sympathetically, and Tony smiled in return.

"Stand down," Steve barked to the agents. At Tony's side, Pepper let out a tense breath. Her eyes were stony and scared all at once.

"Ignore that," Fury called, stepping forward. He'd lost any and all trace of the tolerance he'd once shown Tony.

"Are we honestly believing that this is Loki?"

Tony grinned half-heartedly at the familiar voice. "Hey, Bruce."

"Tony." Bruce nodded, smiling grimly in return.

"Guilty until proven innocent, Doctor."

Tony lifted an eyebrow. "That's not the American way."

Fury crossed his arms over his chest. "It's my way. And as far as I'm concerned, this Mansion is a SHIELD outpost and is therefore under my jurisdiction. So either prove yourself innocent in the next ten seconds, or-"

"Pepper has a birthmark on her hip that looks like Italy upside-down. Hey-" He stumbled, dodging Pepper's attempt to stomp on his foot. "You know, if you're so eager to bandage me up, I'm sure you can just wait ten minutes for them to rip me a new one-"

"Miss Potts?" The director raised an inquiring brow.

"I think you've got to show him, Pepper-"

She went crimson and tried to kick Tony's shin.

"Agent Romanoff," Fury tried again, exasperated. Natasha slid away from the pack, moving to shield Pepper from the cloud of agents shifting by the broken windows.

Pepper send Tony a dirty look over Natasha's shoulder. "You could have spouted some physics joke that only Bruce would've gotten, but no-"

"It was the first thing that popped into my head," Tony protested, relief washing over him as Natasha nodded to Fury, who nodded to the agents, who stopped pointing their obnoxiously large guns in his direction. "Besides, anyone could tell a physics joke. You'd know it was me if it was a well-told physics joke."

Glass crunched noisily under the boots of the men as they headed out the way they had come. Two stayed by the gaping whole, eyes on Tony.

"So," he said into the silence. "Not innocent, I'm guessing?"

"Congratulations," Fury growled. "You're you. Now put your arms behind your back and let Barton read you your rights."

"Whoa, hold on-" Tony started, taking a step backwards as Clint headed towards him with eyes like arrowheads.

"I'd like to hear what he has to say."

Fury's jaw clenched, and he turned to Bruce. "That's not your call."

"It may not be. However, it's been a long couple of days. I think we would all benefit from getting more information before we make any calls at all."

Tony watched the standoff with awe. He hadn't dared to hope that someone would stand up for him after all that he had put the team through, but Bruce was going toe-to-toe with Fury without breaking a sweat.

"I agree," Steve broke in abruptly, and Tony's gaze snapped towards him. "Tony's a good man. I say we listen before making any decisions."

Fury's face hardened, but before he could speak, Thor knocked heavily on the wall to bring attention to himself and nodded heavily.

"I don't see the harm in getting the story here," Pepper spoke up in a cautious but firm voice. Her chin was raised and her expression was strong, but she was trembling the tiniest bit and trying too hard to not look in the direction of the agents and their guns.

"We can get the story just as easily if he's in a holding cell," Clint snapped, and Tony recoiled from the venom.

"A holding cell which could easily be escaped, as we've observed first-hand," Bruce murmured. "There's no real point, is there?"

Fury stared Bruce down for another few moments before whirling to look at Tony. "Sit down," he commanded. "Leave out any details and I'll let Barton ventilate you."

Stark left out some details, that much was obvious. Natasha considered drawing attention to the gaps, forcing an explanation, but there was no malice hidden in his eyes. She let it go and focused instead on watching him carefully, observing every gesture and noting every sloppy, haphazard detail of his appearance. Bruises and scratches; hoarse voice, as though he had been shouting (or screaming); dirt-caked, torn clothes but clean hands and face. On top of all that, he was clearly shaken. Whether or not what had occurred was drastic enough to trigger any PTSD was yet to be determined. But now, for the first time since this while mess had started, he was telling them the truth. Or, at the very least, two-thirds of the truth.

As she listened, she couldn't help glancing at Clint to gauge his reactions. He was leaning against the wall as far away from her and Stark as he could possibly be, taking in Stark's story with a scowl that only got darker as it went on. He'd barely spoken a word to her earlier in the day. Ordinarily, she might assume that his response originated from his revelation about Stark, but that didn't explain his silence towards her.

As Tony reached the part of his explanation regarding the Juncture following the Zoo challenge, his mannerisms became more and more skittish. His eyes flicked towards the alcohol, and his words came faster. "Aside from learning how to read Asgardian, there wasn't anything I could do to reverse the spell and win the Challenge. So I called him, and he agreed to turn everyone back-"

"Just like that?" Steve asked. The tension in his body had slowly drained away, leaving behind a tired shell.

"Just like that. Only, you know, giving in meant that he'd won, which meant that he got a… a prize."

Clint spoke up flatly. "The staff."

Stark looked at him, his face laden with a rare look of guilt. "Clint, I swear, if there had been any other way-"

"There was another way. The other way was the one where you decided to clue us in on what was going on and not steal the fucking deathstick."

Natasha raised her head slightly, alerted by the tremor at the tail end of Clint's protest. He was more than upset, more than hurt. He was outraged, and struggling to not show it in front of Fury.

"It wasn't that easy," Tony snapped back. "If you break a rule, it's not like you get a slap on the wrist. He could have demanded anything, and since there's a magic noose around my neck, it's not like I would've been able to pass him up on it. Hell, he could have asked me to bring him one of your heads on a platter, and I-"

"You what? You couldn't just deal with the consequences of your actions?" Natasha spoke up, but Clint sent her a glare that nearly made her flinch. It said, quite plainly, I can fight my own Goddamn battles.

"But it was you?" Clint asked, turning back to Tony. "You stole the staff, then came back in time to look us in the eye and deny everything?"

Stark stood his ground, barely. "I did what I thought was right."

Clint stared him down for a long moment, long enough for Stark's eyes to turn pleading and his face to show its exhaustion. By the time Fury cleared his throat expectantly, Clint's eyes had gone dull and bleak. He leaned back against the wall, looking tired.

As Stark went on, Natasha watched Clint's face carefully. His mask had once been flawless, but the stress of the past few days had worn it thin. Beneath lay a tinge of the outrage she had identified earlier, accompanied by bitterness.

He looked up before she had a chance to look away, and she caught sight of bone-deep hurt in his eyes before he schooled them into opacity and turned his gaze away from her. Within her gut, something icy and sharp curled up and settled down for the long haul.

Bruce listened carefully, nodding in encouragement whenever Tony's gaze landed on him. The story came quickly in parts, as though Tony had been thinking for weeks about the words he wanted to use, but other parts came as though dragged out from deep within by fishing hooks. At other times, Tony would reach a point and his eyes would turn guarded for a fraction of a second before the next piece came unraveled. He was holding something back, but Bruce wasn't about to point it out. No matter what Fury thought, Bruce was certain that Tony was a good man. Any evidence to the contrary was merely circumstantial.

At first, there were frequent interruptions: pointed questions from Fury, hurt queries from Steve, and Clint's single attack. After a while, though, the story took on a hesitant sort of rhythm where Tony added explanations as he went, beating them to the punch. The last interruption came unexpectedly.

"An axe?" Fury burst out, his voice disbelieving. Everyone in the room looked at him in surprise. "You were summoned by a blonde woman and a man with an ax?"

Tony nodded with exaggerated slowness, confusion evident on his face.

Natasha watched with equal, if better disguised, puzzlement. "Director-?"

"What did they want?"

Tony's brow creased, but he answered anyway. "She wanted to know where Loki was."

"Is that it?"

"No," there was the guarded look, just for a fraction of a second. "She asked about an object, something old. She said Loki was looking for it and wanted to know if I'd seen anything like that."

The look on Fury's face was inscrutable but foreboding. "What did you tell her?"

"Why would I know anything about that? I told her I'm a… pawn. And pawns don't get answers." His face contorted around the word, and Bruce felt a pang of sympathy. He doubted that the others realized how upset Tony was about his lack of control.

Thor banged on the wall loudly enough to make everyone jump. He held up a pad of paper, and Bruce craned his neck to see the three words:

Amora and Skurge

"Yeah," Tony said warily. "Not friends of yours, I hope?"

Thor shook his head, expression thunderous. He scribbled another word hurriedly:

Criminals

"Asgardian criminals," Fury muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Just my luck."

"Not to be rude, Director," Natasha spoke up, "but would you mind explaining to the rest of us what's going on?

Bruce leaned forward as the man straightened. "Assuming Stark's telling the truth, the two people who kidnapped him are the same ones responsible for thirteen murders throughout New York City." He shook his head wearily. "Things just got complicated."

Skurge's eyes opened and closed slowly. Either way, the darkness wrapped around him, smothering him, trickling into his mouth and nose and ears as he breathed and lay still. His chest burned with every inhalation and ached with every exhalation. Any attempt at moving more than an inch in any direction resulted in a sensation of something grinding his bones into dust.

"Amora?" He whispered. His tongue felt thick and leathery. "Amo-"

"Hush."

The word came and went like a flash of light, untouchable and untraceable. Skurge blinked twice before trying again, rumbling, "I need-"

"I said hush."

Skurge's mouth closed, the snap of his teeth managing to be loud. The rest of the silence was filled with the shifting of fabric and earth as Amora moved. Then a pause, so still that Skurge tried to hold his breath before his chest protested. Amora's voice drifted towards him from across the dirt, words lost, tone cautious and incredulous.

Magic flared, pale green and blinding, and Skurge blinked furiously. It hung in the air, twisting lazily and illuminating the cave. Amora's back faced him. Silhouetted against the green, her hands moved in steady grasping motions, as though she was attempting to wring water from the air. The light intensified; veins of whiter, brighter green flared and popped silently, burning Skurge's eyes.

Then Amora gasped and the air in the cave pulled against Skurge's skin and the magic went white, pure white. He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare, blinking away the tears that rose in response, but it had changed again by the time his vision had returned.

The magic hung in the air like mist, like nebulas. It curled and uncurled in a regular, unhurried pattern. Pinpricks of green stretched the length of the cave, hovering even around Skurge's head. Some drifted alone, whereas others shivered in clusters. But they had changed – they were a dark, less familiar green. Amora let out a wild laugh.

"What-"

She whirled to face him, her face monstrous in the glow. "Loki is bleeding."

Skurge squinted at the ground beside his face but saw no blood. Amora cackled again.

"No, no," she spun, dispelling the clumps of particles nearest her. "He's bleeding magic."

Skurge pondered that slowly. As far as he could tell, magic wasn't like blood and could not be bled. "How?"

"A wound that never healed," she whispered, running her fingers through the fields of pinpricks with an expression of glee. "And will never get a chance to."

"But-"

"What does it matter?" She snapped, suddenly feral. "If he bleeds, he leaves a trail. At when we find him at its end…." Her face congealed into a smile. "Then we shall have what we seek."

It's good to be back... ;)

Cheers,

BlackSheep