Helooo! Long time no see, as always! Sorry about that ;) Here's the long-awaited answer to the question "what on earth just happened at the gala?". I hope it won't disappoint – I myself aren't happy with it, as happens a lot lately, but it will just have to do, now won't it?

Enjoy, peeps!

PREVIOUSLY ON ASAF: They were at their third dance which Tony had, with a strong push as Loki's waist, insisted to lead, when it happened.

The uncomfortably familiar whoosh of a shot followed by a blood curdling scream.

The music stopping on a screeched note, and Tony letting go of Loki's waist.

A man dressed in black from head to toe parting the crowd, yelling; "Everybody, freeze!"

Loki kept Tony's hand tightly in his, and froze.

CHAPTER 40

Well. At this point, Tony didn't know why he was surprised. It was always when things went well that the next minute all hell broke loose. And somehow, even though he hated being at this PR-stunt of a fundraiser, he had been enjoying himself in the last ten minutes, actually. It was rather a surprise, because dancing had never been something he specifically enjoyed – he didn't mind it, but he didn't relish it either – and he had just enjoyed dancing with Loki. Must have been the soul bond nudging. It felt pretty strong, tugging at his chest while they were whirling on the dancefloor.

"Down on the ground, now!" yelled one of the goons, waving his very much not human gun around.

The soul bond was tugging at his chest for a whole other reason now – fear for his soulmate's safety. Which was funny, really, because Loki was a super-strong alien and Tony was the delicate little human without an Iron Man suit. He could feel Loki mirroring his exact same panic, because Loki's ice magic had flashed up his sleeve for a few seconds before he got it under control. He'd then stepped in front of Tony, blocking his view of the gunmen, though never letting go of Tony's hand.

It would have been sweet and all, if Tony was some kind of damsel in distress. But this was kind of his fundraiser by proxy. Ergo there was no way he wasn't going to be the star of the show. He pushed past Loki to be the one shielding his resilient soulmate with his fragile humanity. Not a great idea in theory, but he was Tony Stark. He'd make it work.

Someone pushed passed the front gunman with the authority of a gang leader. The man even had the decency of taking off his ugly balaclava, though the face it revealed didn't mean anything to Tony. Unknown villain showing up for an unknown reason with weapons of unknown origin— No, those big guns were familiar.

'IS THAT A CHITAURI GUN?' he sent Loki's way.

'WITHOUT ITS OUTER CASING,' was the response, the Morse code so quick even his genius had trouble keeping up. But maybe that was because he was multitasking, trying to have a glaring-battle with the mute villain-leader while keeping an eye on the few other goons in his line of vision.

"Hi there, Mr… No? No names? Well, don't mind if I call you, let's see… Bob. Listen up, Bob. This is my party you're crashing—"

"We said, on the ground!" The rest of the room had already complied, but Tony squared his shoulders to show he was going to stand as long as he damn pleased.

"Yeah, I don't think so. Unless you intend to join us all on the ground for an impromptu meditation session? You look like you could use some me-time." Bob just glared. "Those are some cute weapons you've got there. Care to share who made them?" Tony said to try to get the guy to speak.

"You have something we want," the guy said, his tone even and his face impassable. It screamed military, and that was not good.

"Great. Am I right in assuming you don't want any of my party guests? 'Cause then how about you let them go, and I'll see what I can do about that thing you want."

"We want the alien."

Ah. Well that complicated things. "So this is a kidnapping. And here I thought it was a robbery."

'I CAN FEEL NINE CHITAURI WEAPONS. THREE ARE ON THE GALLERY,' Loki told him.

Tony didn't dare glance around to see where said goons were, but he guessed they must be easy enough to spot if everyone else was indeed on the ground. The inner balconies that gave onto the dancefloor gave the goons a perfect vantage point – how were they going to take all of them down with this many hostages to think of?

'WHERE ARE THE OTHERS,' he asked. If Loki could tell where most enemies were, maybe he could also locate their allies.

Meanwhile, the master-goon was laying out his evil plan, as if they didn't have better things to do tonight than listen to his bullshit. "The government has known about aliens for decades and they've been hiding it from us. If they'd let us know, we would have been ready to defend ourselves. We would have armed our cities and trained people and we wouldn't have had to rely on a few shitty heroes—"

"Hey!" He was Tony fucking Stark! The coolest hero this side of the galaxy, thank you very much!

"— so we have to get back at them and show we're not the kind of planet they can just come and invade. So we want the alien. I heard that one's a prince, so that's an even better prize. We'll show them who's boss!"

Tony snorted. "You realise he's a prince from the alien planet of our allies, right? And allies rarely stay allies when you go around kidnapping their princes."

The master-goon gestured with his alien gun. "Shut up and hand over the alien."

Tony really needed to find more ways to keep this ridiculous conversation going. They needed time to coordinate some kind of counter-attack. If only he knew how far away Happy was with the suit... But even then, he didn't know how trigger-happy these guys were. By the time he suited up someone could have been killed.

"Look, Bob, you know that's not how it works."

"This is exactly how it works. And my name's not Bob."

"If you gave me your name I wouldn't have to call you Bob, Bob."

'STEVE IS NEAR ONE OF THE GUNS WITH BRUCE,' Loki sent, accompanied by a strange feeling that seemed to make the colourful shadows of magic of the whole freaking universe float in front of Tony's eyes. One particular point flashed brightly, and then his vision of normal reality resurfaced.

When he glanced at that previously bright spot, he could make out the blond head of Steve crouching among the guests, ten feet away from one of the goons menacing the crowd. He also did not seem to be focused on the enemy, but on a dark head that had to be Bruce. And if Captain America was not focused on their enemies, then it must mean there was something much more dangerous afoot – like the arrival of an unhappy Hulk. Shit could start to hit the fan exponentially fast then.

"My name is of no concern to you," the master-goon replied, and Tony refocused on him.

"Well if you intend to kidnap my fiancé I'd really like to know whodunit, you know."

Bob looked thrown by the fiancé comment – it seemed the kidnappers hadn't been paying attention to the newsfeed tonight.

"You intend to marry that?"

"Wow, rude! I think you need some biology classes, dude. You can't call a humanoid a 'that'. Have you never watched any sci-fi, like, ever? And here I thought you knew stuff about aliens."

'ROMANOFF AND BARTON ARE THER.' Loki shared another vision of magic, accompanied by a double bright spot on the floor above, at an angle that Tony could only feel, not see. He hoped that meant Natasha was close enough to an enemy to take them out. 'AGENT MAY.' Another spot, near the far wall, pretty close to a gun-waving moron.

Supposing that Bruce was stable enough for Steve to act, that would only mean three gunned enemies could be dealt with. With the two guns and the chatty boss they had to deal with themselves somehow, that left four alien guns unaccounted for, and who knew how many human-gun wielding enemies there were. Where the fuck were those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that were taking care of the gala's security? Why hadn't they done their fucking job?

'WHERES PHIL'.

"Are you really going to sell off your entire planet to the enemy, Stark? I knew you were a greedy bastard but that's going too far. Maybe we should just off you while we're at it and do the world a favour."

That was— Wow. That arsehole had just left him speechless – quite a feat, he'd give him that. What kind of dark dank hole had that guy crawled out of that he didn't know a single thing about Iron Man and all the work he'd done to redeem himself from his Merchant of Death days?

Loki pulled him abruptly backwards, shielding him with his body, a growl growing in his throat. "If you dare touch even a hair on his head, I will send your soul straight to Helheimr."

Now why did that make Tony feel all hot and tingly inside? Shouldn't he be more like 'I can defend my goddamn honour myself, thank you'? He was fucking Tony Stark, not some damsel in distress.

Meanwhile, Bob, Master of the Goons, laughed. "And how are you going to do that? We're the ones with the guns."

Tony positioned himself next to Loki – that way no one's ego was being bruised by one of them protecting the other. "You know you're facing Avengers, right? Do you really think nine modified alien weapons are going to do the trick?"

Bob seemed thrown by his knowledge about the guns, but he recovered quickly. "I think even one of them is enough to deal with you without your armour, Mr Stark."

Bob flicked a hand, and a Chitauri gun fired.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

It all happened so fast, Loki feared for a moment that his reflexes had failed him. The flash of pain across the bond was undeniable, as well as Tony's sharp inhale. However, Loki did not feel the pull of gravity like when Tony had faced near death by flying up into space – on the contrary, Tony stood firm on his own two feet and Loki did not need to hold him so tightly against his chest. Indeed, Tony was already pushing back with his measly strength to free himself from Loki's hold.

"Son of a bitch," Tony bit out once Loki gave him some space to breathe; while still using his back to shield Tony from their main enemies, of course. The smell of burnt fabric and flesh was nauseatingly strong up close, and Loki did not need to see the state of Tony's sleeve to know this was not good. And it could have been so much worse if he had not manage to pull Tony out of the way – that shot had been aimed straight at Tony's heart.

The spike of debilitating fear that had taken over his whole being was now being replaced by a blinding anger that threatened to erase all the plans he had been making. He was not supposed to lash out at these three pitiful excuses of Midgardians and wring their fragile flimsy necks. He was supposed to protect all the gala invitees, not just his soulmate, because that is what Tony would want him to do. As counterintuitive as it was, Tony would sacrifice himself even if it would only save a single person in this frightened assembly. So Loki had to keep his instincts in check.

He had been making certain he had located all their foes, that he knew where allies capable of taking them down swiftly were, so that Tony could signal them during his nonsensical verbal jousts with these puny would-be kidnappers when they were ready and they could all attack in unison.

Instead, Loki had no choice but to draw magic from Tony now – Tony, who was injured and did not need this siphoning of energy – because he could not take even the few seconds needed to retrieve the Mind stone from his pocket. With it he fished his two favourite knives out of his dimensional pocket, and with Tony still holding onto him – only a few seconds had passed since he had been shot – Loki straightened just enough to fling both in opposite directions, hitting one enemy in the neck and the other in the heart, far across the room.

While the assembly took a collective startled breath and some guests closest to the corpses screamed, Loki pushed Tony away from him so he landed on the floor with a yelp. Loki dived for the Mind stone and despite the pain it cause his core to channel this unfamiliar ancient magic so quickly, he weaved his doppelganger spell and copies of himself confronted every enemy still standing. While the blinding magic in his hand made it harder to pinpoint the actions of the Avengers and company, both his ears and the feedback from his doubles told him all were on the move, acting on the opportunity created by his chaos.

Loki whirled around to join the three copies of himself that were growling at the stunned foes and their master. The mortal Tony had referred to as Bob seemed to wake from his stupor when his eyes met Loki's real ones and he wrenched the Chitauri weapon out of his fellow's hand. For a heartbeat Loki was drowned in the surge of fear that Tony sent him, and the wave of his own magic that tingled along his skin overtook any spells he might have intended to cast.

Loki just absorbed more of the star-making, planet-generating magical force into himself, firing down his nerves, bursting through his skin, and with a hasty hand thrown into the direction of the ready-to-fire gun he let it all go. The gut-wrenching force of the magic took Loki's breath away and his vision whitened. His hold on his doppelgangers snapped, he stumbled, and the silent world swam back into view on the beat of his heart pounding in his ears.

Sounds came back slowly when Tony gripped his arm firmly, before snaking his shoulder under Loki's armpit and taking a hold of his hand. The air vibrated with the buzz of voices all around, accompanied by shifting clothes and loud echoing calls of 'clear!' and 'clear!' and 'clear!'.

"That was— Wow. Just wow. You're amazing. That was quite the magical display," Tony said. He was waffling on to distract from his own pain, as transference from the bond told him. Loki did not respond – if he did, the bond might register that he was hiding a major secret – but Tony did not seem to need a reply.

"I'm a big fan of your ice sculpture. It's like a frozen, spiky wave. It even splashes all the way up along the ceiling, like, what? Almost Christmassy. Very Frozone. Very Mr Freeze. Wait, you don't know those reference yet, do you? Then… Have you read Narnia? Very White Witch, maybe? And their frozen faces are hilarious. Though I guess I shouldn't be saying that, that's getting a bit beyond Chaotic Good. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to have a lot of fun getting them out of there. Serves them right. Where the fuck was S.H.I.E.L.D. security when we needed them, am I right? You saved all these rich people's arses, the clean-up ain't our problem."

"Stark!" Deputy Director Coulson strode over, weaving through the stragglers of the evacuating crowd, clipping his gun back into his hidden holster. His eyes strayed to Tony's limp left arm – pain throbbed along the bond in a continuous wave. It joined in with Loki's own quivering core and helped to keep him standing; lethargy was wrestling his mind, trying to let gravity pull him down.

"You look pale. You both do, I think," Coulson said, frowning at Loki. Loki wondered what pale looked like on Jötunn skin. "Banner!" A haggard-looking Bruce jogged over. "Can you keep an eye on these two until Romanoff and Barton give you the green light? They're securing the way to the car via the back."

"Boss!" Happy ran over, Tony's suitcase held to his chest. "Are you okay? Do you want to suit up?"

Loki could feel Tony's heavy gaze on him, even though he could not see it; his vision was starting to blur, colours mixing into fewer shades than normal. "I think I'd better. Can you hold onto his other arm? Aliens are damn heavy."

Loki squeezed Tony's hand harder – he did not want to risk letting go of their strong soul bond connection. Tony sent him a ripple of reassurance before stepping away but keeping their fingers interlaced. The red and gold crept up his skin with clicks and whirs, keeping his hands and head clear. Even though Tony tried to keep his hiss silent when the armour enfolded his inert arm, Loki could feel the agony in his own head. It joined Loki's throbbing core and veins and skin, increasing his pain tenfold and making the insistent whispers of the Mind stone all the more irresistible.

It murmured its sweet, electric promises along his nerves – a power based in the fabric of the universe itself, begging to be used, begging to be served, begging to abandon Yggdrasil and the root of his soul and let his mind and their Mind be everything that mattered. Loki had heard the whispers of powerful energies and entities before – he had let the quiet flow of Yggdrasil soothe him for as long as he could remember, after all – but it had never been this strong, this insistent, and he had never been as vulnerable to the ancient magics of the cosmos.

Loki tried to concentrate on Tony's hand in his, the feel of his fingers against the back of Tony's hand, the strength of their bond and how their magic was connected. In his free hand, the stone. He should relinquish it now. Give it to Tony – despite the shock and betrayal his soulmate was bound to send towards him in a suffocating landslide.

But if he gave it away now, he would not be able to protect himself – and Tony – if more enemies appeared.

No, he should trust that his soulmate and the other Avengers could take care of the situation and protect his defenceless self – defenceless because the stone was the only thing keeping him standing.

But if he gave it away—

"Tony!" he ground out before he could be persuaded otherwise. Tony, who had been in a low conversation with his driver, looked at him with a puzzled sense of alarm. Loki lifted their joined hands and turned them so Tony's was underneath. He slipped his hand under Tony's to cup it, not daring to let go of their connection yet. He dislodged the arm Happy was gripping, and with the most excruciating of efforts – the stone was now begging him to spirit it away to his dimensional pocket – deposited the legendary yellow gem in Tony's awaiting palm.

As Loki lifted his last finger from the stone, Tony's understanding and shock rang clear across the soul bond, and before the stone could call to him again Loki let go of Tony and stepped back.

Darkness encroached his eyes, colours bleached, and the last he saw was Tony's concern before the void claimed him.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

Tony barely had time to register the fact Loki had just handed him the crazy powerful stone that should have been securely held in his vault when the trepidation and guilt he could feel from Loki's side of the bond dampened as his soulmate stepped away. Not a second later there was a whole-body pull, and Tony knew Loki was going down even before Loki's eyes closed – but there was nothing he could do. His body was frozen, his vision tunnelled, and if his suit hadn't been holding him up Tony would have hit the floor.

His hearing, however, mostly kept working, and the weight of Loki landing on the tiles never came – instead it was Happy's grunted oomph, the sound only slightly dampened by the rush of blood in his ears.

"You weren't kidding about heavy aliens, Boss."

Tony shook the sluggishness out of his brain, ready to go help Happy hold his soulmate up – alongside his disbelief and the heat of the stone burning his palm, there was an overwhelming need to not let anyone touch his soulmate. His route was blocked, however, by Bruce hovering at his side, peering into his face with a frown.

"Are you all right?" Bruce glanced to Loki's slumped form awkwardly draped against Happy's side. "How symbiotic is that… link of yours?"

"Pretty symbiotic," Tony ground out. The silence from the other side of the bond was extremely unnerving and instantly put Tony on edge.

He pushed past Bruce and gestured at Happy to help him shift Loki's weight onto Tony's armoured self. He pushed the stone into his other palm – gripping it tight with his left hand sure put his injured arm on fire, but Tony didn't want to let go of it, neither by sticking it in one of the suit's small pocket areas that he could ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to create, or by entrusting it to someone else. This left his right arm free to slide it behind Loki's back and hold his waist up. With one of Loki's arms draped over Tony's neck and the other over Happy's they would be able to drag Loki out of here.

"Bruce, watch our six, yeah? I'm not waiting for Tweety and the Spider's approval, I'm getting Loki out of here."

"I'm not sure that—"

Tony cut Bruce off. "I don't care if you follow or not. I'm leaving before I pass out from the pain and J.A.R.V.' has to be the one to walk me out." Bruce still looked hesitant, looking around to maybe find Phil again and ask his opinion or something, but Tony didn't have time for debates. How could he mention the stone without actually mentioning the stone in case walls still had ears? "Besides, it's not just about Loki. I happen to have something… powerful on me that really shouldn't be up for grabs for any would-be villain." Or Fury for that matter.

He wasn't sure if Bruce had any idea what weapon he could be talking about, but he nodded and took the rear just as Tony had asked so it didn't matter. Tony tried to focus on their surroundings as they started to walk to the back, biting through every step the suit made him take. With Loki out like a light the world felt muffled. A whole dimension of emotional-magical-locational sensations were gone and it felt blinding. Funny how his brain had already adapted to that constant foreign input, and without it was like everything was robbed of brightness and colour.

They happened upon Natasha and Clint just before they reached the emergency exit. Clint looked ready to comment but Natasha was first. "Come on," was all she said and opened the door. Clint went first, a gun firmly in hand – it was strange to see Clint with something as banal as a Glock. One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cars was parked in the alley. With Bruce's help Tony and Happy managed to lie Loki down on the back seats and Tony joined him, struggling to get inside with his Mark V on. He was going to hold his soulmate's hand the whole ride and hope it helped to revive him quicker somehow.

With Happy and Bruce in the middle row and Natasha and Clint in front, Nat at the wheel, they drove off with screeching tires, hopefully back to Tony's tower. He sure as hell didn't want to bring Loki to a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, and the Mind stone even less. If it looked like they were going in the wrong direction, he would take over this ride. Either the old-fashioned way with his weapons, or he'd have J.A.R.V.I.S. highjack the car's electronics.

Luckily none of this was necessary. Natasha drove them straight to Stark Tower – Tony almost complained about taking such an obvious route that any enemy could anticipate, but he wanted to get to safety as quickly as possible so he kept his mouth shut. Tony wouldn't put it past Natasha to choose this route exactly because it might uproot some more enemies. Either way, they reached his garage without a hitch – J.A.R.V.I.S. closed all the safety doors behind them and Natasha parked right in front of the reinforced glass of his workshop.

Tony reluctantly let himself be persuaded to have Happy and Bruce transport Loki with the makeshift stretcher J.A.R.V.I.S. pointed them to, after informing the whole assembly that Tony's arm should not bear any weight. Tony grumpily followed right behind Bruce as they negotiated their way into the elevator. Natasha and Clint, after checking with his A.I. that the tower was a safe enough place – seriously, who did they think Tony was? – took the car back out to go help S.H.I.E.L.D.

"J.A.R.V., you know what to do," Tony said as the elevator sped upwards.

"Lockdown protocol Gamma is in place, Sir."

"And how about you check why the fuck S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't protect my gala, yeah?"

"Certainly, Sir."

"Send DUM-E up with medical supplies. Oh, and a secure case for the stone." Bruce's gaze turned towards him then, but Tony kept his eyes focused on the opening elevator doors.

"Already on it, Sir."

"Good boy."

Tony led the way to the bedroom and helped – one handed, since Bruce was giving him the stink-eye – to lie Loki down on the bed. He then steeled himself and let the Mark V collapse. The tugging on his sleeve that had stuck itself to the wound and the sudden lack of pressure was a jab of pain so strong it made lights flash and he tasted blood when he took a seat next to Loki's thigh.

The other two hovered close, which probably meant he didn't look so good. Tony really wanted to see the state of his arm, and he also very much didn't want to see the extent of the damage. So he stalled, focusing on the feel of Loki's hand that he had, unbeknownst to him, been squeezing tightly. There still was no reaction at all from the bond – though now that he was slightly calmer, he could still feel the shadow of it. It was simply dormant, similar to what it looked like when Loki slept, except it was much fainter than during sleep.

Dum-E rolled in, a basket of supplies slung over his arm and a metal suitcase hanging from his pincer. Bruce accepted it all and started rooting through the supplies; Dum-E crept closer, arm whirring as the camera switched from Tony's face to Loki's. As Tony didn't tell him off, Dum-E beeped mournfully and rolled up as close as his wheels would let him, hand nudging Loki's shoulder. Tony was torn between telling him to stop and letting him be, because his little baby reacting to his soulmate's situation was heart-warming and cute.

"Excuse-me," Bruce said, and cleared his throat when no one reacted.

"Dum-E, get out of the way, Bruce needs to take a look at Loki." Dum-E let out a whining beep before reversing. "How about you find us something to eat? Those gala canapés sure weren't filling." Dum-E's hand perked up and he sped out of the room.

"Is there anything I can do, Boss?"

"Open the suitcase for me?"

Happy looked puzzled when he found the suitcase empty, but Tony gestured him over. There were three empty Arc reactor slots in the foam – this was a suitcase he'd used to move his tech from Malibu.

With his good hand, Tony pried open the stiff fingers of his other hand. It turned out to be hard to get the stone to stop sticking to his palm – it was like attempting to pull off a magnet. For a split second Tony was tempted to just leave it there. It wasn't like he was going to use his left hand any time soon. The warmth was nice. It distracted him from his pain. He could keep it – but that would just be stupid. He couldn't leave a space weapon stuck to his hand! Seriously. His brain had the strangest glitches sometimes.

Tony put the stone in the middle space of the suitcase's foam. He pressed it down for a few seconds, and a few seconds more, and then ripped his fingers away from that nice magical heat. Right. This was a magical object. Maybe it even had some form of sentience. No wonder Loki had obsessed with that stone the moment he felt its power. Tony couldn't understand the magic it exuded, but if even he could feel how it tried to keep close to him, it must be very strong for someone who could hear its voice.

It might also explain why Loki had robbed his vault instead of discussing using it with Tony. If Tony had known how nice it felt just to hold the damn thing… Yeah, no way he would have let Loki use it. And that was even without considering the whole super-powerful-space-weapon state of it that you didn't want to take out in public, or anywhere near S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony signalled Happy to close the lid, and he put his finger on the fingerprint reader to lock it. "Take it straight down to the vault, will you? J.A.R.V.I.S. will tell you where to put it."

"Sure thing, Boss. Can I ask what that thing is, though?"

"You really don't wanna know."

That sounded ominous enough for Happy to grimace and hurry out of the room, holding the suitcase at arm's length. Tony turned his attention to Bruce who was checking Loki's vitals. Tony made sure to keep in contact with his soulmate, in case he needed to pull Bruce away. You never knew when the ice could start, especially if Loki was unconscious – it had a tendency to appear when Loki was especially vulnerable, after all.

Bruce would probably be relatively okay even if he did get frostbitten, but Tony didn't really fancy Hulk appearing in his bedroom just because of some magical ice. And, well, that wasn't the only reason Tony didn't want to let go of Loki's hand, of course. It was his duty to monitor the soul bond. For now there was nothing coming along it, but if Loki was going to wake up surely he would feel it, and if Loki was worsening, maybe the bond would let him know somehow, and the stronger the connection, the better.

"How is he?" Tony asked when Bruce stepped away from the head of the bed.

"It's hard to tell. He's an alien. I'm not a medical doctor. But as far as I can tell, he's unconscious but his heartbeat is strong, so I'm guessing he won't be comatose for long. Hard to be sure, of course."

"I concur with your diagnosis, Dr Banner. I have compared Mr Friggason's current vitals with his usual ones, and I do not expect a long period of unconsciousness. I suspect he has collapsed because of exhaustion linked to magical overuse."

That sounded reassuring, but who knew what the stone had done to him? Neither Bruce nor J.A.R.V.I.S. could test for something like that. Magical overuse? How about magical overflow – that stone was a legendary-level item – or a magical stranglehold – this was the Mind stone, who knew what using it did to you – or magical incompatibility – Loki had spoken about how his Arc reactor's magic was not like that of the Yggdra-tree-thing. They were out of their depth here.

They needed a second opinion. He eyed Bruce. Time to sound like a crazy person. "Heimdall! Oh, Heimdall! All-seeing spaceman, are you watching?" Bruce's eyebrows had gone up, but he wasn't commenting which Tony was grateful for. This was weird enough as it was. "I might be talking to the wall and sounding like an idiot, but I just wanted to let Asgard know that Loki seems unconscious after using the Mind stone? And, you know, no one has come yet to pick up said crazy weapon, and I don't feel comfortable having that in my vault? So if you could pass along this message to, like, Loki's mom, and Thor, that would be awesome. Thanks. Over and out."

"Who is Heimdall?"

"An Asgardian with magical eyes that can see you if you call him. So better not say his name when you're in the bathroom."

"Right." Bruce blinked a few times, then shook his head with a sigh. "Now let's take a look at your arm. Though from here I can already tell you'd be better off in a hospital."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"Dr Banner, I have taken a scan of Sir's arm. At the point of impact, five inches above the elbow, there is a clean break of the humerus, as well as a second degree burn and bruising."

Bruce hummed his understanding and retrieved a pair of scissors from the basket of supplies. He started to cut up Tony's very expensive jacket and button-up – he might have complained if the suit hadn't been shot anyway. Tony spent a horrible half-hour of teeth grinding while cloth fibres were being pulled out his skin with pincers, antiseptic cream burned him all over again, and the pressure of the bandages made his heart pound in his bicep. A temporary sling was made out of the remnants of his jacket, and Tony realised that this injury was going to be a pain in his arse for quite a while. Fuck Bob and his goons.

Maybe Loki could heal him like he'd done with his hand at the shawarma place? No, no, he shouldn't count on something like that. Loki was most probably unconscious because of magic issues. Besides, he'd said healing magic wasn't his speciality, so this type of injury might not even be something he could deal with. And anyway, since when did Tony think of magic as his go-to option for his problems? Science was his everything – he shouldn't be cheating on it with alien voodoo. Loki was really a bad influence with his amazing spell-weaving abilities.

Bruce left with the promise to come check on Loki in a bit, and to call him if anything were to happen. Not long after, Dum-E barged in with warmed-up leftovers on a tray that was tilted a tad to the left, making the arrival of the precariously piled-up cutlery a near miracle. Tony quickly grabbed the tray and took it with him to the other side of the bed – the side that usually was Loki's. He toed off his shoes and socks, and with his food in his lap, a foot in contact with Loki's ankle and a tablet to stave-off the boredom – he had to figure out how S.H.I.E.L.D. could miss the fact that Chitauri weapons had reached those insane criminals anyway – Tony was ready to wait for his soulmate to wake up.

I'm sure you spotted where I wanted to add a shit-ton of Elsa references – but I'm trying keep this fic somewhat chronologically accurate, and so since that makes it 2012, no Frozen :/ You can imagine the let it go puns yourselves, though XD

Tony is so protective :D Way to go, Tones! Hopefully Heimdal got the message and manages to get things moving in the slow, slow lands of Asgard :p

Spread the Luv!

LL