They had caught the bad guy, learned the truth behind SHIELD's work with the Tesseract, got attacked by one of SHIELD's own only to lose the bad guy as well as his older brother, the Hulk and one very... dedicated... fan and SHIELD Agent.
Oh, and let's not forget the Tesseract. Again.
Right now, after stabilizing the fourth engine with the Captain, the two of them were more or less hanging out to catch their breath. Tony couldn't say that they were all buddy-buddy now, but there was a certain... something that allowed them to understand each other's point of view to some degree.
"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"
Looking back up as he was brought out of his thoughts, Tony could only blink at the question. "We are not soldiers! I'm not marching to Fury's fife."
Steve narrowed his eyes in return. "Neither am I. He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does, but right now we gotta put that behind us and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."
"He made it personal." Tony spoke up, interrupting Steve, his mind already working things out.
Steve furrowed his brows in confusion and upset at being interrupted. "That's not the point."
"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"
"To tear us apart." comprehension finally dawned on the super soldier's face.
"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."
Nodding his head, Steve was following along with what Tony was saying. "Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."
"Yeah. That's just previews, this is...this is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered-" blinking, he paused when he realized two very important details.
Loki needed a power source and he himself had just supplied his entire tower, and Kagome was going to be there. Alone.
"Son of a bitch!" with that said, he started out of the room to get back to his suit.
No way he was going to leave his daughter alone with a crazy god. They were bad enough when sane, mythology always had them going for young girls, who knew what a crazy god would do when he learned what Kagome meant to him.
AN: Sorry for being late! But this week has been super busy! And we've still have a ton of stuff to sort out at school. So, if I'm late on Thurs. expect updates to be picked up on Fri. then. September may be like this, as I'm not used to the class schedule, just to be warned. Other than that; read, enjoy, and review!