Warning: N/A

Chapter 3- Getting Drunk and Partying. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

If there was one thing Loki hated about the Avengers, it was their meetings. He wasn't really sure how many times Thor could explain that Ebony Maw had vanished out of his cell, leaving a confused guard in the dungeons. When they'd checked, the tesseract was gone too. Loki wondered if that had been their plan all along. Ebony Maw had said something about wanting Loki to bring him to Asgard.

He flicked his eyes to Thor, who sat on the other side of table, wearing his brooding-I-messed-up-guilty expression. He was probably blaming himself, which Loki normally would have agreed with. Most things were Thor's fault. Still, even knowing the destruction Thanos could cause with an infinity stone in his power, Loki had felt pure unadulterated relief when Thor had announced what happened. When he'd first seen him, interrupting at the worst possible moment—he still wanted to know what Anthony had been about to say. It had felt so intimate, Anthony looking at him like he wanted him, even after he'd pretty much destroyed a building. It felt impossible. Arousing. Incredible—he'd thought Thor had come because of the building. He'd thought Odin had sent him to drag Loki back to Asgard. He'd been relieved when he heard what Thor was really there for, even if it meant Thanos being able to destroy the universe.

"You know him," Fury said, his eye fixed on Loki. "Why would he want the tesseract?"

"He would just be getting it for Thanos," Loki answered.

"Why would Thanos want it?" Natasha asked, and Loki felt a little like screaming. When had he become the Thanos expert?

"I don't know," Loki said.

"You don't know?" Barton scoffed.

"He didn't exactly share his plans with me."

"That's convenient," Barton answered, his eyes narrowing, and Loki forced his face to stay blank, his hand fisting at his side. Bruce sighed, and Natasha pursed her lips. Anthony's fingers thumped against the table, his gaze distracted and thoughtful.

"We must find a way to retrieve the tesseract," Thor said, apparently completely oblivious to the mounting tension. "With both the mind stone and the tesseract in his possession, who knows what Thanos will do."

"We can't just traipse around the universe with no idea where to go," Bruce answered.

"I wasn't suggesting that we—"

"We don't even know where he is," Natasha said.

"It would be more helpful if we knew what he wanted with the stone," Barton answered.

"We'll know when he attacks us," Bruce said, and there was an eerie silence. They were probably all thinking the same thing Loki was, imagining the destruction he could cause. He'd been able to reign down an army of Chitauri on their heads and he hadn't even been that invested. Then everyone started talking at once, their voices overlapping.

"We don't even know—"

"Maybe that's not why he wants the—"

"Is there a way to track—"

"We should be focusing on—"

"How would we even get into space when—"

"It isn't as if—"

"One at a time!" Fury said, his voice loud enough to break through the cacophony, and the voices quieted down. Loki pressed his right pointer finger to his temple. He hated these meetings. Natasha was the first to speak, jumping into the silence.

"Weren't you working on a way to track the mind stone, Bruce?" Natasha asked, and Loki sat up straighter in his chair. He hadn't known that. Tony had never mentioned it, but then Tony had never mentioned a lot of things.

"Yeah, but we haven't gotten very far," Bruce answered, and Tony nodded absently, his fingers a loud tap on the table. "We can't seem to match up the frequencies."

"I think it has something to do with the distance," Tony said. "He must be on a different planet by now, and I'm not sure how to account for the distance."

"Perhaps, I could be of assistance," Loki answered and then hesitated. "I'm more familiar with both the mind stone and planetary travel."

"Oh," Tony said, his eyes widening and his hands stilling, and Loki felt hot dread spread through his stomach. He'd only been down in Tony's workshop once. Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe Tony didn't really want him down there. "Maybe you can use some of your magic." Tony drummed his fingers on the table, his face lightening up like the idea of locking Loki out of his workshop hadn't even occurred to him. "I've been meaning to have you come down and do some scans. I could make so many upgrades if I understood how magic worked. The sorcerers we'd come up against would have no idea—"

"Maybe we can save that for after you're able to track the mind stone," Natasha interrupted.

"Is that the only plan we have?" Barton asked. "Hope we're able to track the mind stone?"

"We could also hope he shows back up here and then stop him," Tony answered. He leaned back, the front legs of his chair hovering in the air, and he sounded entirely too casual for the severity of his statement.

"That's a bad idea," Loki said. Natasha's eyes flickered over his face and the legs of Tony's chair banged back down as he leaned forward.

"Well, it does nothing to sit around arguing about it," Fury said, and he stood, his chair dragging against the wood floor. "Work on tracking the stone for now."

He left, the door closing with a soft snap behind him, and the room was awkwardly quiet, tense.

"Movie anyone?" Tony asked, and he turned his head and smiled straight at Loki. It was tense, the lines around his eyes and mouth deep. He wasn't near as carefree as he was pretending.

"That's not helpful," Natasha answered.

"I'm serious!" Tony said.

"I could watch one of your movies," Thor answered, and Natasha sighed.

Steve threw his shield over the top of the building, the red, white and blue spinning over roof and toward the man with long hair. The man spun around, catching Steve's shield in his outstretched hand. His hand—his whole arm—glinted silver in the moonlight, and Steve realized only then that his arm was metal. His dark hair fell over his face, a black mask covering the lower half of his face and making him impossible to recognize, and yet—And yet there was something impossibly familiar about him.

He'd shown up in the middle of Steve's mission, shooting the foreign dignitary he'd been protecting from the rooftop of a neighboring building. If Steve had been a heartbeat slower, he never would have found the guy. The guy spun on his heel, throwing the shield back at Steve. He caught it against his stomach, the force sending him back a step. When he managed to look up again, the man was gone.

He stuck his arm back into the hold of the shield. Something was—there was something familiar about the man, the way he moved. There was just something—something he couldn't put his finger on.

The credits began to roll, and Loki leaned back on the couch. It had been the third movie in a row, some horrible movie about children waving wands in a magic castle. It was unrealistic and irritating and grating. Most everyone else wasn't even paying attention to the movie anymore. Barton hadn't even hung around after the meeting, barely nodding goodbye to Natasha before he disappeared. Anthony had moved to his bar sometime during the second movie, and he was now on his fifth? glass of something alcoholic, laughing over some multicolored card deck with Bruce and Natasha. Natasha seemed to be winning, calling "Uno" over and over.

Thor had started drinking around the same time as Anthony, and Loki hadn't even bothered trying to count how many glasses he'd had. Unfortunately for Thor, Midgardian alcohol tended to be stronger than Asgardian alcohol, which was meant to be consumed in much larger quantities—or maybe it was just Anthony's alcohol—and he'd started walking around the room challenging everyone to try and hold his hammer. Anthony had laughed when he'd failed, Bruce had barely tried, and Natasha had waved Thor off twice before he gave up.

Thor had only approached Loki before he glared, and Thor backed off. Loki hadn't even wanted to stay, but when he'd turned away from the party, Natasha had gotten in his way, and Anthony had been looking at him, his eyes pleading, and Loki had been drug to this horrible party.

"You're brooding," Anthony said. He dropped onto couch, his arm draped across the back of the couch by Loki's shoulders. He was still holding a glass of some dark amber liquid, and he smelled faintly of alcohol as he sat just a little too close, his thigh brushing against Loki's and his arm hot against Loki's shoulder.

"I am not," Loki answered. Anthony laughed, his side pressing against Loki's as he shook. He was so warm, his eyes crinkling in a bright smile. It was the first time Loki had seen him truly drunk, and it was hardly one of Anthony's most attractive looks. Centuries of being forced to banquets and celebrations and hanging around Thor and his friends had permanently put Loki off tipsy people. Still, it was hard to pull away when Anthony was right there. When he probably wouldn't even remember this tomorrow morning.

"That's definitely your brooding face," Anthony said, and he leaned fully into Loki, the side of his body pressing heavily into Loki as he sighed contentedly. Loki stiffened, his back impossibly straight, but Anthony didn't seem so notice. He curled his arm on the back of the sofa, moving to rest it on Loki's shoulders instead.

"Don't you have a card game to win?" Loki asked. His voice sounded wrong, strangely high pitched. His heart hammering against his chest, so hard, he could feel his pulse in his neck, in his fingers. He felt like if he moved some spell would be broken and Anthony would realize what he was doing, because surely, he was hallucinating or he'd been enchanted. It was probably more possible that he'd been enchanted.

"Please," Anthony answered. "Natasha's been winning everything."

"Perhaps you would win more if you were sober," Loki said. The credits on the movie finally ended, that horrible song that had been playing over and over repeating once again as the menu came up, asking if they wanted to watch it again. Loki sort of wanted to burn it.

"Eh." Anthony grunted, and something brushed the hair out of Loki's face, a flash of tan skin and Anthony's upraised arm and Loki wasn't going to look to make sure. "I win enough right here," Anthony said. Loki twisted his fingers in his lap. He refused to ask what Anthony meant. He refused to acknowledge any of this was happening actually.

"Brother," Thor exclaimed. He stood at the end of the couch, still dressed in his Asgardian gear with his hammer hanging between his fingers. He must have been making his way back around, trying to get Loki to try holding his hammer again.

"Thor—" Loki started, trying to pull himself out of Anthony's grip. Anthony made a garbled protest in the back of his throat but slouched back into the couch. As relieved as he was about the interruption, he really didn't need the reminder that he couldn't hold Thor's hammer. He could still remember when Thor had been banished to Midgard, when he'd stood in the middle of that temporary Shield base and failed to be equal to Thor. Again.

"I didn't know you were courting Stark," Thor interrupted, and Loki tensed. Anthony blinked rapidly, looking like he was trying to make sense of Thor's proclamation.

"I'm not courting anyone—"

"You need not lie," Thor interrupted, waving his hammer around like he was trying to incapacitate someone. "I have eyes, brother. I am happy you have found happiness."

"You've lost your mind," Loki answered. His cheeks were burning, and Anthony was still blinking, his mouth parted as he looked at Thor like he was waiting for the punch line. He didn't know that Loki was the punch line.

"Stark suits you, I think," Thor continued, apparently obvious to the fact that Anthony was right there, and that Loki wanted him to shut up. There was a muffled laugh from behind him, and when he glanced back, Natasha had her hand over her mouth, her lips stretched in a wide grin. Bruce was watching with the same level of interest, the right corner of his mouth pulled up. It couldn't get more humiliating.

"I didn't understand before," Thor said. He moved to sit on the edge of the couch, barely missing Loki as he sat down. Loki glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice at all. "I didn't get it, but after being controlled…" He waved his hammer around again, and this time Loki had to actually duck out of the way. "It's different. I wasn't in control at all. Is that how you felt?"

"Yes, thank you for the insight, Thor," Loki answered, his voice a sharp snap. Thor blinked, his gaze bleary and confused, and Loki wanted to slap him. No, he wanted to throw him off a building. A tall one. Without his hammer.

Loki stood, and both Anthony and Thor sank into the space of the couch he'd left behind, both having been sitting entirely too close to him. Thor called his name as he turned to leave, his voice loud and befuddled, but Loki kept walking.

Loki was already in the kitchen when Natasha got up the next morning. He was obviously in a bad mood, banging cabinets and stirring his tea so hard that some splashed onto the counter. She bit her cheek. He probably wouldn't react well if she started laughing. He was obviously still upset about last night. And ok, maybe it hadn't been the nicest thing to let him dangle when Thor had been harassing him, but Tony had been cuddling him like they really were courting, and it wasn't like Loki was shoving him off.

"Good morning," she said, sliding into the seat across the counter. Loki grunted and threw his tea bag on the counter. It landed with a soft plop as he wrapped his hands around the cup.

"You were hard on Thor," Natasha said. "He was only trying to offer you congratulations."

"Everyone should be hard on Thor," Loki answered, not bothering to look up. His voice had that hard edge of annoyance that he held when he was feeling venerable. "He might start thinking he's decent if we're not."

"I almost offered you my own congratulations," Natasha said, ignoring him. "I thought maybe you finally had that talk with Tony."

"I talk to Anthony all the time."

"The two of you looked pretty cozy last night."

"I saw. He obviously wasn't taught boundaries."

"Loki," Natasha said, and he sighed, running a finger around the rim of his cup.

"He was drunk."

"He wasn't that drunk," Natasha answered. "Trust me. I've seen Tony drunk."

"Then Amora cast a love spell on him," Loki said. He nodded, his mouth set in a thin line as if that made any sense and raised his cup to his mouth. Honestly. It was like he was dead set on not being happy or something. And maybe he was. Maybe he really didn't realize that she—that Anthony, and Bruce, that even Thor for all his missteps and having no idea how to handle Loki, want him to be happy. He was intent on making himself miserable. It had taken Natasha sparing with him, getting up in the middle of the night to find him cradling a cup of coffee with bleary, haunted eyes, watching him watch Tony like he hung the moon to really understand how little Loki deserved to be miserable. Maybe he used to be unhinged, or even evil, but now, he was just human.

"You're absolutely ridiculous," she said.

"No one has ever told me that before," he answered, completely straight faced.

So, technically Winter Soldier is supposed to take place two years after Avengers; however, I'm going to ignore that because this fits with what I want to happen better. We can pretend Loki switching sides prompted Steve to go on a solo mission and meet Bucky sooner. Aren't alternate timelines nice?