"You're gonna want to see this, Tony."
Tony stops just as he's about to leave the room. He supresses the urge to roll his eyes, even though he's fairly certain Rhodey won't be able to see him doing it. He's just got back, he has a mountain of paperwork waiting to be foisted off on someone else, and he's nursing the mother of all headaches. A three day conference with a bunch of people he barely tolerates at the best of times has pretty much eroded his patience quotient for the week.
He's already tried fobbing the guy off with a promise to listen to him properly later (like that's ever going to happen) but Rhodey is a persistent son of a bitch when he wants to be. And he's using a tone. That tone. The tone that says this is A Thing and he'd better put his summer plans on hold 'cause this is going to shit all over them. He really hates that tone.
"You're killing me," Tony replies with a sigh, and Rhodey doesn't so much as crack a smile.
Yep. It was A Thing.
o0o
Rhodey hits play, and a clinical room Tony doesn't recognise appears on the screen.
"What," he says, savouring his first sip of bourbon, "no trailers?"
Rhodey's face remains grave. "Just watch, Tony." He's no fun when he's like this.
Tony takes in the scene. The picture is canted at a slight angle, as though the camera has been knocked out of alignment and not yet rectified. The room is oddly featureless, no windows, no wall fixtures, no colour. A plain, empty table takes up the centre of the room. The edge of a free-standing console of some description is visible just to the right of the picture, but not enough of it is in view for Tony to guess at its purpose. Behind the table is an empty chair, half of it out of shot. The arm rest in view has a wide leather cuff hanging from it.
A time code in the bottom left hand corner of the screen counts off the seconds, the only evidence that the picture hasn't frozen.
Tony casts a questioning look up at Rhodey, but the man doesn't take his eyes from the screen. With a sigh, Tony settles himself more comfortably and waits.
The sounds of shuffling break the silence and a broad man's back comes into view from the left of the screen. He manoeuvres somewhat awkwardly between the table and the chair, eventually making room for a second man who sidesteps in next to him. If Tony had to guess he'd say they were both wearing stab vests.
They jostle and heave, and Tony can just make out a limp hand that disappears behind them, presumably belonging to a third person being moved into place between them.
Before Tony can get a better look the view is blocked by the looming face of a man in a lab coat. The guy frowns at the camera, adjusting and turning it to square off the picture, his eyes flicking up as if checking the angle is more to his liking on a corresponding screen. Satisfied, he moves away, revealing a colleague puttering about at the room's table. The two larger men are no longer in sight.
As the man goes about his task, he repositions just enough to allow glimpses of the chair opposite.
Its occupant is strapped to the armrests by his wrists and appears to be semi-conscious. The only signs of movement are the slight flexing of his long fingers. His head is hanging forward, dark hair obscuring his face, a strap just discernible across his throat which seems to be keeping him somewhat upright. The sight is an uncomfortable one.
Tony fidgets uneasily in his seat and places his glass on the coffee table in front of him. Rhodey remains ominously silent.
The two lab coated men exchange a few words in a language Tony doesn't immediately recognise. Eastern European, perhaps? One of them checks his watch and scribbles something on a clipboard, moving out of view to the right. The second moves around to the side of the seated man, finally revealing a tray of medical paraphernalia laid out on the table. A number of syringes are laid out in a neat row alongside small glass bottles of clear liquid.
Tony sits up straighter in his seat and swallows.
It's difficult to see what's happening without clear line of sight, but from his movements Tony surmises the lab coat is in the process of delivering an injection to the man in the chair. His guess is confirmed when he turns to place an empty syringe on the table, stripping off plastic gloves as he does so.
The other lab coat comes back into view with a handful of wires, and together they begin attaching sticky pads to the seated man's chest. Several disappear beneath the neck of his shirt and a monitor is clipped to the end of one of his fingers. The guy's head is then tipped back and his hair moved to one side so that more pads can be attached to his temples.
Tony feels the blood drain from his face as he gets his first good view of the man in the chair. He looks gaunt and pale and his eyes aren't tracking, but there can be no mistake.
This time when Tony looks up, Rhodey meets his eyes.
"What the ever-loving fuck?"
Rhodey has a fist to his mouth and a pinched expression to his face. He extends a single finger towards the screen without lowering his hand and flicks his eyes back at the picture. Watch.
Tony drags his eyes back to the screen with a conflicting mixture of reluctance and fascination and leans further forward in his seat. He needs to work on believing what he's seeing. His eyes rake more carefully over the figure in the chair as though his eyes have been deceived. The long limbs, the black hair, the time stamp apparently dated less than a week ago... It's adding up to something his mind doesn't quite want to examine too closely.
Loki is beginning to stir and hold up his head, and any lingering doubt Tony was holding onto is banished. Glassy eyes regard the lab coat taking his pulse for a moment before giving the room a sluggish once over. He's forced front again by fingers on his chin and hisses as a penlight is shone in his eyes. He's released and the lab coats exchange more words, their attention momentarily on their notebooks.
Tony studies Loki's face carefully. He doesn't think he's imagining it when Loki squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in deeply through his nose, seemingly gathering himself. When he opens them again they seem clearer, and his face has lost its slack expression. He gives his head a single sharp shake and starts to surreptitiously test his restraints, his hands fisting and unclenching in a steady rhythm at his sides.
He licks his lips, and Tony startles slightly to hear him speak.
"Who are you?"
The words are delivered haltingly between little huffs of breath. He watches the men around him closely as they go about their business, turning his head to follow them as much as he's able, but if he's expecting an answer he doesn't get one. Tony expects an impatient sneer or a clever remark to follow, but instead Loki grits his teeth, a spasm of discomfort screwing up his face. He's starting to sweat, Tony can see, and he's becoming restless in his chair.
Several long minutes pass. Tony can't understand them, but he gets the impression the lab coated men are shooting the breeze while they wait for the juice to take effect. They seem perfectly relaxed.
Loki, on the other hand, does not. He says nothing more, but his eyes become gradually wider, and he trembles as though enduring something incredibly unpleasant.
His panting finally becomes audible, and bright spots of colour appear high in his cheeks. The lab coats are watching now with interest, although Loki no longer seems to have eyes for them. His gaze skitters wildly, and Tony feels something turn over in his stomach. He knows panic when he sees it.
The view is once again obscured as one of the men approaches the camera, retrieving something from behind it. He returns to the table and pushes the tray to one side, placing whatever he's fetched in its place. He retreats back a couple of steps and takes up his clipboard again. A plain ceramic mug now sits innocuously on the table.
Loki eyes the thing like he's never seen one before and as though there's a chance it might leap from the table and bite him. He starts tugging at his cuffs in earnest and flashes panicky looks between the two men. One of them says something, loudly and clearly – an instruction of some kind – and Loki bounces the back of his head off the head rest like he's been backhanded. He lurches forward again with a snarl that runs Tony's blood cold, his eyes promising slow and brutal murder.
The effect is quickly lost to him as he pants for breath and he starts to rock back and forth in his seat. If Tony's reading him right he's fighting to hold back sounds and knows he will soon lose the battle.
The same words are repeated by the clipboard-holding lab coat, and again Loki's body snaps forcefully against his chair. The defiance is stripped from him this time, a whine escaping as he strains forwards. Drops of sweat snap from the ends of his hair as he leans, his body shaking with effort.
Tony watches several more rounds of this with his thumbnail clamped firmly between his teeth.
"What are they even doing?" he finally demands as the Loki on the screen reverberates in pain once more. He has to avert his eyes. Loki is throwing his head back and forth almost mindlessly.
"They want him to make it disappear," Rhodey discloses. Tony doesn't ask him how he knows this.
His attention is drawn back to the screen by a whimper that makes him wince. A second syringe of chemical persuasion is being emptied into the cannula on the back of Loki's hand and he's frantically scanning the ceiling like his salvation might be found there. One of the large men who first brought him in has returned to the room, carrying what looks suspiciously like a taser in his beefy hand. Loki sees this and lunges at the man with a snap of teeth that miss by a wide margin. A huge fist fixes in Loki's hair and slams his head back hard in remonstration, and Loki growls wordlessly.
The hand lets go and when the instruction comes again, the taser is pressed firmly against Loki's exposed neck.
Loki screams.
"Ah, Jesus," Tony mutters and has to look away. "Rhodey..."
"I'm sorry, Tony. But there's more."
"Well yeah," Tony growls in irritation. "That's kinda my point here."
Rhodey stabs at the remote and mutes the sound, but he doesn't stop the playback. "It's coming up," he insists.
Even without the gut-wrenching sounds, Tony recognises agony when he sees it. The taser is touched to his skin again and Loki bucks violently against his restraints, his head tipped back and the cords of his neck standing out as he screams.
Tony has almost turned away again in disgust when he sees it on the third round. Loki arches again and his hands fly open. The image vibrates finely and the picture breaks up. When it returns the table is still rocking slightly and the mug rolls back and forth on its side. Loki's breath is heaving and his stare vacant, but the lab coats are in a frenzy of motion.
The sadistic bastards look inordinately pleased with themselves.
One of them rights the mug on the table and steps back again, the thug with the taser back in position.
Tony's seen enough. He takes a breath to protest but Rhodey's already hitting the fast forward. The frames jerk past with much of the same – and Christ if there isn't minutes of this shit – until Rhodey hits play again just as a brawny arm locks an elbow over Loki's throat. Loki struggles for several agonising seconds and Tony snatches for the remote.
"Stop," he barks angrily when Rhodey dodges him.
"It's okay," he says, and Tony thinks the fuck it is.
The picture fuzzes out white and when it comes back on Loki is alone in his chair, his breathing still laboured but his face otherwise blank.
The mug is gone. So too is what was left of the row of syringes. One of the lab coats staggers past the camera with one of them protruding from his neck and makes a hasty exit from the room. The other is nowhere to be seen.
Tony watches with no small amount of horror as Loki's face splits into an eerily familiar grin, crazed and desolate and with tears of pain still streaming down his face. It's hard to tell without the sound, but he's making small choking movements that look like sobbing laughter. They don't let him get too far with that.
The taser-wielding guard re-enters the room and cracks Loki one across the jaw. A huge hand appears out of nowhere to fumble with the camera and the screen goes black.
Tony feels sick to his stomach. He lurches to his feet and paces jerkily to the other side of the room. Rhodey sighs behind him and sinks into the place on the couch he's just vacated. Tony turns to see him scrubbing his face with his hands. He picks up Tony's abandoned drink and tosses it back in one.
"That doesn't get any easier on the second watch," he says almost to himself.
Tony doesn't know how to feel about this. He's actually lost for words. He paces a couple more times, runs a hand through his hair, turns to Rhodey, thinks better of it. Paces some more, leans against the window with both hands, straightens. When he turns again, Rhodey is gazing at him contritely.
"Tony..."
"No. Just don't." He takes a breath. "What the fuck did I just watch?"
Rhodey assesses him with a measuring look and seems to come to a decision. He's all business when he speaks, and it gives Tony the time he needs to collect himself. He can't quite find it in him to feel grateful.
"It came in two days ago. I tried to get hold of you, but you kept dodging my call."
Tony draws a hand down his face. He's been keeping so damn busy. He knows exactly what he's been doing. "Came in from where?"
Rhodey's pause is eloquent. "A source."
"Uh huh," Tony replies, and damn if this doesn't have Fury's bloody fingerprints all over it. "Is the date accurate?"
"Far as we can tell."
Tony lets that sink in for a moment. "Who's 'we'?"
"You're not the only one with friends on the inside, Tony. I had to check it was legit and I had to run translation. I wasn't going to bring in something I couldn't verify."
Tony feels like he's barely holding back his frustration. "So you come to me for that." After everything they've been through. After this last crappy year. He doesn't trust anyone who isn't them to deal with something like this properly. Rhodey should know that, dammit.
The look Rhodey gives him has so many layers it's painful to look at. "No offence Tony, but that's not exactly been easy lately."
He doesn't want to examine that one too closely. He's not having a conversation about his availability, or his feelings, or his questionable coping mechanisms. He's not even having one about how out of the loop he is now, because that way lies deep, shark-infested waters.
"So why all the cloak and dagger?" he asks instead, dropping heavily into a chair. "Where has this even come from?"
"Best we can guess, we're looking at some shadowy weapons outfit out of Eastern Europe. Language is Ukrainian, but spoken with an accent, so chances are we're just talking ballpark. It was on a flash drive intercepted making its way in at top level. My guy seems to think it shouldn't get there."
Tony guesses 'top level' means military, maybe NSA. He's not sure who Rhodey is in bed with these days. Not sure he'd find out if he asked. And isn't that sad. What he does know is that Rhodey's right: this can't get anywhere near Ross.
"So, thoughts?"
Rhodey looks uncertain. Like he's not sure which way Tony's going to jump with this. If he's honest, Tony's not sure he's entirely made up his mind either. But he isn't feeling generous. He'll let Rhodey hang for a bit longer.
"This is a problem," Rhodey hedges. "A big problem. We've got unknown interests dicking around with a high level security risk. We've got covert US interests picking up the scent. And we've got people on the inside not liking the way that's shaping up. And I happen to agree with them."
"You think we should handle this ourselves," Tony concludes, and the solemn look Rhodey returns is enough to raise the hairs on his neck.
"You really want someone like Ross getting an idea like this?" Rhodey asks. "You really want to start on that slippery slope?"
"I thought you were all for oversight," Tony returns, just because he can.
"This is different and you know it. This is weaponising people. This is rounding up people of interest and writing them off as assets. And after Barnes? After Wanda and the others? This scares me, Tony."
"Gotta be a person first though, right?" What is wrong with him? Why can't he stop? "Last time I checked, this guy—" he jerks a thumb at the black screen "—damn near levelled the city. And that was just the appetiser."
Rhodey looks about as disappointed in him as he's ever seen. And that's saying something.
"I know you don't believe that," he says firmly. "You just saw the same thing I did. There's no way Loki's there by choice, and no matter what he's done, no one deserves what they're doing to him."
Tony nods decisively and slaps his thighs as he stands. "Good. Glad we're on the same page. Because I happen to agree. I don't like it, but it has to be us."
Rhodey raises his brows and sits back in his seat. He looks like he's caught between relief and a scowl, and settles for a cool glare. "You're a real dick sometimes, you know that?"
Tony flaps a dismissive hand. "So anyway. I thought Loki was dead."
"Yeah. So did I."
He and Thor are going to have words, if ever he sees the big blonde lightning rod again.
"We're sure it's him?"
Rhodey affects faux innocence and leans forward with the remote. "Oh, you want to watch it again? 'Cause I can just…"
"Okay okay. It's probably him. And you're the worst, by the way. So how'd he end up with this bunch of clowns getting poked with pointy objects? And how are the clowns not yet dead?"
"Maybe he never made it back to Asgard. Or maybe he came back and got himself whammied. He doesn't exactly look in great shape."
"Performance issues," Tony agrees distractedly. "So, what, is this a Manchurian Candidate kind of deal?"
"Doesn't look like it's working out for them too well if it is. Maybe it's early stages. They're studying him, trying to work out how he does it. Replicate it, maybe."
Tony makes a scoffing noise. "Do they even know what 'it' is? Do we?"
"Well whatever it is, it's powerful enough to short out the camera, and make a mess. And anyway, you've seen him in action."
And ain't that just the rub. Tony's seen some completely unexplainable shit these last few years, not least of which has been alien armies, mythical beings and unliftable hammers. But that doesn't mean he's ready to start believing in magic.
"Maybe I'll ask him," Tony decides. "When we, you know. Spring him. Which I'm assuming is your plan."
"Yeah. See, this is where things get a little… hazy."
Here it comes. "I take it from your tone that we're low on intel."
Rhodey waves his hand vaguely at the still black screen. "That's it. That's all I've got. My source couldn't give me any details."
"Couldn't or wouldn't?" Tony challenges, and Rhodey just looks apologetic. "We're going to need a little more to go on if we're going to do something about this."
"If I might make a suggestion."
Both of them startle at the interruption and Tony clutches at his heart. He turns to find Vision looming serenely at his shoulder, completely unconcerned. They've talked about this.
"I recall an instance when large energy outputs were mapped to determine the location of certain wanted persons," Vision continues. "A similar approach may prove effective a second time."
"Great idea in principle," Tony agrees, considering and then discarding the algorithms he and JARVIS had used to find the Extremis combustibles. "But we have access to sensors for reading thermal energy events. Not so much for spikes of mystical mojo." He's not going to call it magic. Not even in his head.
Vision considers this. "Then perhaps I can be of assistance." He touches the yellow crystal at the centre of his forehead with something between reverence and caution. "This entity emits exotic energies the likes of which are unknown to your science. Were we to calibrate a device to recognise such frequencies, we might use it to scan for anything similar."
Rhodey raises his eyebrows at Tony. "There is a connection there," he says. "Loki's sceptre. Wanda's… weirdness. It could work."
Tony will be the judge of that, thank you very much. But even leaving that aside, he has more pressing concerns. "Okay, so hypothetically. We locate the Bond villains' lair, then what? Ask them nicely to hand over their prisoner? Who just so happens to be dangerous and unstable, by the way. You guys haven't met, but trust me. Not fun to be around."
Vision acknowledges this with a polite incline of his head. "I believe I was able to gain some small insight into Wanda's abilities while in her company."
Tony snorts softly remembering how well that went. Vision ignores this and continues.
"I am confident we have the tools we need to contain any threat, and if you'll permit me, I'd like the opportunity to explore these phenomena further."
Rhodey gives Tony an unreadable look. It figures that the two of them would underestimate the risk involved here. They weren't around the first time, and all they're seeing is a bust up skinny guy getting worked over by nut jobs and their evil henchmen. They think they can be reasonable about this and that Loki will fall in line, but they're wrong.
Tony has an uneasy feeling lurking in the pit of his stomach and he doesn't know what to do with it. So he does what he always does in situations like this: he sarcasms the hell out of it.
"Okay, Vis, you got it. You make Mr God Complex there play nicely and he's all yours. The two of you can knock yourselves out. But I'll be taking some serious precautions. I dunno, just call me over-cautious, I guess."
Again Vision concedes to this with a bow of the head. If he understands the nuances he chooses not to comment on them.
"So that just leaves an actual rescue plan," Rhodey adds, and yeah, no lack of sarcasm there at least.
Vision bestows them both with one of his rare, enigmatic smiles, and the twinkle in his eyes leaves Tony wondering if he hasn't misjudged him after all. "Well," Vision says without a hint of irony, "I can walk through walls, after all."