Tony was the only one of the Avengers in New York City when Thor reappeared without warning in the middle of a construction site. He had been engaged in one of his infrequent personal inspections of the Stark Industries-funded rebuilding projects and was not at all anticipating the God of Thunder when he looked up from the blueprints he had been studying.

"Point Break! Long time no see! Nice of you to stop by!" Tony said brightly to cover his shock. Then, voice suddenly much flatter and more cautious, "What's up?"

"It is good to see you, Anthony," Thor said. He looked and sounded tired.

"Uh... what are you doing here? Not that... It is good to see you, Thor." He glanced around at the various workers and managers now giving them strange looks. "Let's go to the Tower to chat, eh?"

Thor shrugged but nodded. "I will meet you there," he said, and vanished.

Startled, Tony stayed frozen for a few moments, until Jarvis' helpfully announced, "Sir, I am detecting unusual energy levels on the balcony of the penthouse in Stark Tower."

"Since when can he teleport?" Tony complained, then summoned an Iron Suit and as soon as it arrived took off towards the tower, alighting beside Thor minutes later. They walked in silence into the penthouse, Tony absently wending the way towards the parlor with its waiting bar. He wanted a drink. He had time to curse his foolishness though when Thor froze in the threshold, staring at the yet-to-be repaired pit in the floor. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew why Thor was back. He moved to take his friend's arm to guide him to the bar, but his hand passed right through Thor's bicep.

"What the hell?"

"I am not here in body, Anthony."

"You're a hologram?"

"What you see is an astral projection. I borrowed Munin with my father's leave."

"That...doesn't actually help."

"Munin is the raven of mind and enables his masters to cast the mind even between the worlds, and even for those without any underlying magical ability."

"So you're a magic hologram."

Thor smiled briefly. "I am not sure what that word means, but yes, probably. An astral projection links two minds. What you see is a combination of my impression of myself and your memory of me."

"Crap. So you're a magic hallucination. Am I going to go insane? Please don't drive me insane without my permission, Thor."

"It is not a hallucination," Thor said soothingly. "Though I suppose it might appear that way to others. It is a harmless magic though."

Tony didn't say anything, realizing now why the foreman and others at the construction site had been staring. They weren't staring at Thor. They were staring at him gabbing away at the air.

"My mother and Loki could do the same even without the aid of Munin," Thor offered awkwardly.

"Magic is so unfair," Tony concluded, and poured himself a shot of whiskey. He gestured to Thor. "I'd offer you a drink, but..."

Without missing a beat, Thor reached to the side, a flask appearing in his hand...just like magic. He poured a large measure of whatever-it-was into what could only be described as a chalice, which had also, magically, appeared in his other hand.

"How's Loki?" Tony finally asked.

"Terrible," Thor said shortly and downed his drink in one enormous gulp. Tony raised his eyebrows. "Everything we have tried has failed," Thor continued. "We have successfully poisoned him a couple times. And yesterday, I stopped his heart. Briefly." He shuddered.

"...I don't know what to say."

Thor shrugged. "You don't need to say anything."

"I'm sorry," Tony offered, and meant it. "I gotta ask though, why and how did you stop his heart?"

Thor smiled thinly. "We were trying a Midgardian technique. It was supposed to cause a seizure, and that was supposed to help, somehow." He raised his hands and stared at them, looking faintly disgusted. "I placed a hand on each side of his head," Thor continue softly. "I summoned the storm. Gently. I did not want to hurt him. But gentle power was not enough, apparently. Lady Eir - she is our finest healer - she told me to use more. And I did. And it was not enough. So I had to use more, and more. It still was somehow not enough to induce the seizure we needed, but it certainly caused contraction of the muscles, and burns. That's when his heart stopped. Only for a moment before Eir was able to fix it, but still... I killed my own brother, temporarily. It was awful."

"Wow." It was the only thing Tony could think to say at the moment.

Thor looked up at him. "She wants to try it again, in a few days or a week. That's why I'm here, to gather more current information about your hearlers' methods. So we can address whatever mistakes we made."

"Again? Oh, man... that sucks."

Thor grimaced. "We have to try."

"Oh." Only then did Tony realize how serious Loki's condition must be. He had not really given much thought to Thor or his mad brother since the two left, concentrating instead on the rebuilding efforts. Deep down, Tony had secretly assumed Thor was being melodramatic and Loki would bounce back fairly quickly... "You know, I actually read about electroconvulsive therapy - that's what we call it - back before you left and we were still trying to figure out what happened. Shouldn't take too long to find what you need."

"Thank you, Anthony."

"Did you figure out what happened to him?"

Thor sighed. "Not really. It clearly has nothing to do with the battle. Our best guess is some effect from the jewel in his scepter. I would also like to examine the jewel if I may while I'm here, see if it holds any clues."

"I have the whole scepter here still, that's no problem. But I have to ask, why would he put a dead man's switch in his own... oh."

"Loki was lost to the Void a full year before arriving here," Thor said him softly. He had said something like that before as well, and the Avengers had not listened. "I had never seen that scepter before. It was not his originally. Nor would the Chitauri have been his natural allies."

"Who gave it to him then?"

"We do not know."

"But it is vitally important you find out. Yeah. I get it. Ok, I'll get Jarvis to hunt up everything he can find about how to electrocute your brother safely, and you and I can go to the lab. Jarvis?"

"I take it Mr. Odinson is communicating with you using an energy beyond my programming to interpret?"

"Yes."

"Then I shall cancel the call to your therapist, Sir, and conduct the necessary literature review."

"Gee, thanks," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "Let's go, Thor."

...

"This...looks different," Thor said after several long minutes peering at the stone and its half-deconstructed scepter.

"Well, yeah. I've been studying it. Turns out the handle part was really just a handle, not wired to the main device at all. It's over there." He gestured vaguely to another table behind them. "Don't worry, I have all the diagrams. It's mostly still intact though. It took me forever to remove the casing. I'm pretty sure all the mechanisms are still in the original configuration and theoretically should still work, if we knew how to use it."

Thor looked over at him with raised eyebrows. "You are a brave man, Anthony."

"Thanks! I am?"

Thor smiled wryly. "I would have hesitated to study this device as you have been, knowing how Loki used it on Hawkeye, and knowing Loki's state now."

"Ah. That's a good point. To be fair, I was very drunk when I started working on it."

"Then I must congratulate you even further to have successfully avoided serious injury while drunkenly meddling with powers unknown."

"Thanks again!"

"You are welcome," Thor laughed, then turned back to the stone. "It is completely inactive," he said after awhile.

"You sound disappointed. And after your warnings of 'powers unknown.' Here I thought you were worried about me."

"I was worried for you, Anthony. But I am disappointed. We had presumed this device was truly responsible for my brother's state, but it is hard to believe that with no residual spell activity to keep him as he is."

"It wouldn't be a one-time dead man's switch?"

"Well, it still could, but then our hopes of reversing it are much lower. I was half hoping to simply come down here and be able to turn it off."

"Oh."

"I do think I have seen something like this before, though. All these circuits with the stone as a central relay. It's familiar. I do not recall where... Mother might know."

"It just put me in mind of ridiculously complicated motherboard. You going to have Mom join the call?"

"What? Oh, no. I will share the memory with her later." He turned away from the stone with a sigh. "I don't think that stone is the culprit. This probably goes back further than we thought."

"What do you mean? Like, whoever gave it to him?"

"Perhaps, but I am more afeared of what might have happened to Loki before he was found." At Tony's questioning look, the god explained, "If you recall what I told you of my recent banishment to the part of Midgard you call New Mexico, that was the time Loki was lost to the Void. I fought with him as soon as I returned to Asgard, and he fell from the Bifrost. Norns only know what might have happened then. I have never heard of one surviving the Void unshielded as he apparently did.

"You do realize I have no idea what you're talking about with this 'Void' thing though, right?"

Thor smiled. "Sorry. It is hard to explain."

"Try me?"

An hour and five drinks later, Tony was still confused and getting frustrated. "Ok, sorry, just one more time. Your rainbow Bifrost thingy is actually a high-tech energy device that projects a bubble of dimensional space through wormholes?"

"Yes."

"Wow," Tony said, and hiccoughed loudly. He had to open another bottle of whiskey to wrap his mind around what Thor was telling him. "Ok... and Loki fell off the bubble... so he fell out of dimensional space?"

"Yes." Thor downed the rest of his own drink. His nose was also becoming distinctly red. Maybe he should get the Rudolph nickname.

"How is he still alive?!" Tony shouted.

"I don't know," Thor slurred patiently. "Remember we think he might not be."

"Yeah, yeah, but I mean, god! Thor. It doesn't make sense for his body to show up, dead or alive, if he literally fell out of spacetime."

Thor shrugged helplessly. "I am not a scholar. I cannot explain it. It is not quite so unbelievable as you think, though. Asgard has the technology to enable material to survive the Void. Most advanced civilizations do. There are a lot of ships traveling the Void, as a matter of fact, not just the Bifrost. The question remaining is how Loki might have survived without the usual shielding in place. I understand one of Loki's old friends at the Institute of Magic is devoting her time exclusively to unraveling the mathematics in this case, although I suspect her effort will remain futile as long as Loki remains as he is and unable to enlighten us."

"Damn," Tony muttered after a moment. "I didn't think I was this bad at physics."

Author's note: Never fear, the plot will be moving along soon. In the meantime, I do appreciate your reviews :)