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It had been three long, stressful days since Thor had broken his unwelcome news to the rest of the Avengers. The team had been on high alert, watching for any sign that the God of Mischief had returned to Earth, whilst Thor re-joined his own countrymen scouring the realms for his lost brother.
On the third evening, Jarvis alerted Tony, who had one again buried himself in his lab, to the return of Thor. Tony issued a weary sigh and heaved himself out of his chair. He decided to take the stairs up to the common floor, where he knew the others were congregating, to buy himself a few more moments of peace.
The noise reached him before he even made it to the sitting area. He entered the room and was met with a volley of shouts and swearing. He used their distractedness to take in his colleagues one by one.
Bruce was sat on the armchair furthest from the door, head in hands, pulling on his dark hair and making it stand on end. Tony guessed he was trying hard to not turn in to a giant, green rage-monster.
Thor and Clint were engaged in a heated argument that looked moments away from turning physical. After throwing childish insults back and forth, their voices rising with each taunt, Clint finally removed his hearing aids and turned his back on the God of Thunder. Thor looked significantly outraged and made to go after the archer until Steve stepped between them, raising his hands placatingly. Tony could clearly see that Steve's shoulders were set with a deep tension, even from across the room. He figured the super soldier had gotten as much sleep as himself in the last few days.
"Welcome to the party," a wry voice said from his left. Tony turned to find Natasha perched on the breakfast bar, one leg bent under her, calmly working her way through a bag of M & M's. She offered the pack to Tony and he took a handful of the colourful candy before taking up position next to her.
"Good news then?" he asked, sardonically.
"Oh, you know", she replied, "just that Loki has finally decided to grace us with his presence".
Tony suddenly found it difficult to swallow. Although they had been expecting this outcome, a small part of him had harboured a secret hope that Thor would find his brother long before he touched down on Earth. Or even that he would find another planet to terrorise instead.
"When?" is all he managed to croak out.
"Last night." Tony felt the redhead shift next to him. He glanced at her stoic face and saw a brief flash of something in her eyes; Fear? Excitement? Anger? Before they returned to their usual keen, observant state.
"Why are we only just finding out about this?"
Natasha sighed and hopped gracefully off the counter.
"Thor thought, somewhat misguidedly you might say, that he could find Loki himself and convince him to return home."
"And all this shouting is everyone congratulating him on a job well done, I suppose".
Natasha smirked at Tony and handed him her half-eaten bag of M & M's.
"Come find me when they're finished with the dramatics and are ready to figure out a plan of action".
"And where, pray tell, will you be, exactly?" he asked her retreating form.
"I have a hankering to shoot something," she threw back over her shoulder.
"Keep it on the range this time, Red!" Tony called after her, only to receive a one-finger salute in reply.
Tony turned resignedly back to the rest of the Avengers who had now all retreated into their own corners of the room, eying one another warily. He inwardly cursed himself that his project was not yet fully functional – this is exactly why we need it.
Tony took a deep, steadying breath before approaching his teammates.
"So, fellas," he started, "it seems we have stumbled into a shit-show. Any ideas?"
He plopped himself down on to the couch, still holding Nat's bag of candy, and looked around at the other men, waiting for one of them to speak. I mean, why is it always me that has to be the man with the plan? Let them use their own brains for once.
"We need to find him before he does any damage," stated Thor, with the confidence of one whose subjects hang off his every word.
"No shit, Sherlock".
Thor gave him a quizzical look.
"That is not my name, Stark, as you well know."
Tony ignored him and turned to the others.
"Anyone else have any bright ideas?"
"We can't do anything until we know where he is," Banner said, quietly, rubbing his tired eyes until they appeared red and sore. "The Asgardians are working on pinpointing his exact location but, until we have that, I suggest we all get some rest".
"That doctors' orders?" Tony took in Bruce's unkempt hair and the heavy bags under his eyes. Bruce offered him a wry smile.
"I think we are all going to need at least our B game before we face him, don't you? I, for one, don't want to be caught off guard again."
With that, Bruce rose from his seat and exited the room without a backwards glance. A quick look about the room told Tony that Barton had also fled without him noticing. Tony felt an avalanche of guilt wash over him, and a glance at his remaining comrades told him that they felt the same. Amidst all the commotion of the last few days, he realised that they had failed to check up on the two people for whom Loki's return would cause the biggest upset.
Both Bruce and Clint had been forced to turn against their colleagues and friends the last time they had encountered the God of Mischief. Clint, in particular, had struggled greatly with the aftermath of what he had done under Loki's mind control. Tony knew first-hand how heavy the burden of guilt could be and he felt ashamed that he had not thought to offer more support to the pair recently.
"I think Bruce is right," Steve finally broke the heavy silence that had descended on the small group. "We should get some sleep. We need to be ready for whatever he's going to throw at us".
Tony nodded at him, more than willing to escape to his room and sink into Pepper's welcoming arms, if only for a few short hours.
"Point Break," Thor tensed, clearly expecting another angry tirade. "Your room is all made up for you; you're staying here. No arguments."
The relief on Thor's face was palpable making Tony almost feel bad for the grief they'd all given him. But not quite.
As Tony retired to his room, he asked Jarvis to tell Natasha to get herself to bed. He thought that sometimes Natasha confused herself with the super soldier the way she went all out in her training sessions.
Tony lay for a long time staring into darkness, listening to Pepper's steady breathing. Now that they knew the threat was definitely there, he felt a certain calmness settle over him. It seemed that it was the uncertainty that had rattled him the most. He could feel his eyes getting heavy and eventually succumbed to the sweet relief of unconsciousness…
Tony bolted awake, panting like a rabid dog, with sweat dripping down the back of his neck.
"You 'kay?" Pepper mumbled, sleepily, sitting up beside him and resting her hand against the arc reactor glowing in his chest.
"Weird. Dream", he huffed out. The details were foggy and getting more obscure the longer he was awake. He allowed Pepper to gently guide him back against his pillows, his breathing starting to even itself out.
"Wanna talk about it?" she sounded more awake already and Tony knew that she'd sit up all night with him, despite the fact that she had a gazillion things to do the following day, if he wanted to recount every last detail of whatever freaky nightmare had awoken him. There was a time when he may have allowed her to do so, may even have called her up at 2am, when she was his assistant, and expected her to marvel at his genius or soothe his ego, and still assume that she would be at the top of her game the following day. Thankfully, those days were behind them.
Tony pressed a gentle kiss to Pepper's strawberry-blonde hair and told her that he couldn't remember what the dream was about, but that it was probably to do with the hideous lumberjack shirt that Steve had thought it appropriate to wear to the last Stark party. Pepper giggled into his shoulder before promptly falling back to sleep.
Tony could feel himself starting to drift back off too when the back of his eyelids was lit up by a fluorescent green light.
He cautiously opened his eyes to find the whole room aglow.
The light vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. His groggy mind couldn't process what that meant for some time; he was half convinced that he was still dreaming. And then it hit him.
Loki.
Tony clapped the bedroom light on, startling Pepper back to wakefulness, and flew to the window. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see but New York looked completely undisturbed. He turned back to find Pepper staring uncomprehendingly at a scrap of paper in her hand. After she'd studied it for a few moments she turned worried eyes to him and held out the paper, her hand trembling.
"I'm not sure what it means," she said, "but it can't be anything good".
Tony practically snatched the paper from her hands before devouring the words on it:
You may wonder why it is you who has been spared this night, but I think it fitting that you be the one to shoulder this burden. It was you, after all, who opened my eyes to those that I had underestimated.
I will not be bested again.
We shall meet once more, I am sure, however you shall be friendless when my armies next descend.
Treat my brother well, though he has been little more than a tiresome oaf, he is a Prince of Asgard and should be remembered as such.
Tony felt his heart pounding in his chest. He knew that he should move, go see what devastation Loki had wrought on the rest of the team, but his legs felt like lead.
Loki had murdered hundreds of people, either by his own hand or on his orders, but would he really murder his own brother and his teammates in their beds? And leave Tony to live with the guilt of surviving them?
Treat my brother well -what did that even mean? Was Tony supposed to arrange a funeral fit for a god?
Tony sank back on to the bed and felt Pepper shift to sit beside him.
"I have to go see", he croaked out. "I have to know what he's done to them".
"I'll come with you", she took his hand as she spoke and pulled him from the bed. Normally he would have protested, not wanting her to have to witness whatever horrors awaited them, but he didn't have the strength to face this alone.
Before they could make for the door, a hesitant, British voice spoke seemingly out of the air.
"Sorry to interrupt, Mr Stark, but your presence is required immediately in the common area… Miss Potts, you had better come too".
The pair exchanged startled looks before running full speed out of the suite. By unspoken agreement they bypassed the elevator and headed straight for the stairs, flying down them at breakneck speed, arriving at the common area completely out of breath.
At first Tony thought the room was empty and had a moment of panic that Loki had somehow infiltrated Jarvis' system and was luring he and Pepper into a trap, but then he felt Pepper's nails dig into his hand. Hard. He followed her gaze to…
"You have got to be shitting me!"
"Careful, Tony; Steve doesn't like that kind of talk".
Tony stared, completely dumbstruck, at the tiny redhead smirking up at him.
"You know what, Romanoff" protested a taller blonde boy with a slight pout.
Tony stared about the room, mouth agape, at the utter ridiculousness that his eyes were trying to sell him as truth. He turned to Pepper, hoping for a 'gotcha' smile and for his real teammates to jump out of their hiding places and tell him where in the hell they stole five children from at three in the morning.
Tony's hopes, however, were dashed when he was greeted with Pepper's starkly white face and panic-stricken eyes.
"Pep," he whispered urgently, "please tell me I'm dreaming here".
"Tony", a nervous, solemn-looking boy with untidy brown hair appeared at his side wearing an ill-fitting grey t-shirt and tartan pyjama bottoms, "maybe you should sit down; you don't look too good".
A strangled cry was all that Tony could manage to issue, so incredulous was he at what he was seeing. He allowed himself to be led to the couch, Pepper following in his wake, both staring wide-eyed at the miniature Avengers assembled around them. I'm gonna kill that greasy-haired son of a bitch!