A/N: Next chapter is when fun things start to happen!

I don't own The Avengers, Loki, Iron Man, Thor, or anything of the like. Just the thoughts inside my head.


As Tony and Loki limped back to their cell, between their two escorts, two weeks later Tony was determined to ask about Loki's weapon, and his powers that seemed to be connected to the silver bracelet that he usually hid under his tunic sleeve. Tony eased himself down onto the cot as the bars rose up from the ground and he found himself cursing the two dwarves that may or may not be dead.

"So, where do you come from?" Tony asked as he checked the cut that had helped ruin his pants even more, and saw that it had stopped bleeding. He slowly started to ease the wires from the reactor and to get the boots and gauntlets off. "I mean, you kind of look human, but you're obviously not-"

"Mortal," Loki finished with a sneer. "No, I am not mortal." he was using some of his blankets in strips to dress his own leg wounds. "I suppose your kind would call me immortal, I have been called a God by others."

"What would you call yourself?" Tony asked and Loki looked up at him carefully.

"Lost," he answered quietly. "I was raised in Asgard, studied as a powerful sorcerer."

"So you do use magic to fight with then," Tony confirmed more to himself than anything. "If you're so powerful, why don't you-" Loki cut Tony off when he held up his wrist, showing the bracelet.

"This is a magic dampener," Loki explained as he finished tying off one of the blanket strips. "It is, powered down if you will, when I enter the battle grounds so I am not defenseless. It is akin to the serum they gave you when you arrived. Every fighter is different, but they all receive something."

"And then turned back on after the fight is over," Loki nodded as Tony finished the thought. "So that's why you're so quick to heal the worst of any wounds."

"Do not think that I do you a kindness," Loki looked up at the man, a hardness in his eyes. "I merely see that you have some kind of talent in fighting, and I do not wish to see you die so quickly due to the lack of medical care from our caretakers."

"Don't I feel special now," Tony rolled his eyes as he slid one of the boots off.

"You are my eighth partner in three years-"

"You've been here for three years?" Loki shot Tony a look for interrupting him.

"-and I do not wish to be stuck with another unfortunate soul who can not fight," he continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "You have a modicum of talent and I do not wish it to be wasted when it will keep me alive."

Tony pushed the boots under his cot, next to his gauntlets and leaned against the wall. He'd been here two weeks and he wondered if they knew he was missing yet. He wasn't unknown for disappearing for a week or two at a time, but he thought that JARVIS would have at least let Pepper known. Pepper. They had kissed. Then he had left. He thinks they knew, they both knew that it wouldn't work, they couldn't be a couple. At least he had talked Pepper into staying on as CEO, at least for a little while.

"Is anyone looking for you?" Tony asked quietly, wondering the same about himself. He needed to know.

Loki blinked, but didn't look at the engineer. "No," he finally answered. "No, they think me dead, more than likely. I doubt that anyone is looking for you either, Stark." Tony looked up, a little startled. "I have said it before, this is a place of no time. Time does not move here, you do not age, once you have been branded, and time does not move on your planet. You create a fixed point in time once you are brought here."

Tony took a breath and nodded slightly. He glanced out the bars when he heard the familiar boots of what Tony had informed him were the Yar. They had stopped in front of their neighbors, if you could call them that, a couple of shape-shifting elves as Loki had informed him. Devra and Jek. They had gotten there shortly after Loki had, and it seemed that they had formed a bond with each other. It was yet unknown to their Yar captors, but Devra was pregnant.

As they were taking off to the arena Tony looked over and saw that Loki had followed the couple with his eyes, and was staring off down the hall. "There are not the first to have a child here," Loki suddenly said. It was rare that Loki was feeling chatty, and Tony was quick not to interrupt him, this time. "The child shall grow and age, shall enjoy time with its parents, until it is almost fifteen seasons in age. Then it shall be branded, it shall be tested, and then it shall be moved and given a partner."

Tony tried to swallow past the lump in his throat and found himself looking out the bars and down the hallway. Somewhere inside, he still wished that this was all a drunken dream.


Tony's eyes shot open when he felt a tight grip on his shoulder. Looking up from his pillow he saw a rather annoyed and tired looking Loki above him. "You were talking in your sleep," he said tightly and Tony blinked. Loki let go and Tony sat up slowly.

"Was I talking, or was I screaming?" Tony asked and Loki raised an eyebrow. "There's a difference."

"I know the difference," Loki grumbled as he returned to his own bed.

"That's not what I meant," Tony rubbed his face. He didn't feel his heart racing, the sweat on his face, and his blankets weren't tangled in his limbs. "If I was just talking then that's fine, for now at least. The screaming though-"

"You suffer from nightmares?" Loki asked from his prone position on the bed. "There is something that haunts mortals enough to cause terrors?"

Tony snorted and plopped back down on his own bed. "Yeah, yeah there is," he said quietly and shut his eyes again.


Loki turned in the bed, being drawn from his sleep by a scratching in the cell. He wondered what unfortunate creature had wandered into their cell and sat up slowly, then blinked. Tony sat on the ground at the end of his cot, a piece of flint in his hand as he quickly scratched words and numbers onto the wall.

"Stark?" Loki asked quietly but the man didn't move. He sighed an pushed himself up and walked over to the mortal. It had been a month since he had been woken up by Tony's words and he wondered what had caused the mortal to act as such.

"Anthony," Loki leaned down next to Tony, but still the man didn't acknowledge him, he continued writing. Loki examined the marks on the wall and raised an eyebrow. Numbers and letter strung together, along with drawings of something that Loki didn't recognize streamed from the rock in Tony's hand. "Stark!" Loki grabbed Tony's wrist and the man jumped back, pushing himself against Loki, his eyes wide.

Tony blinked wildly and looked back. "Loki?" He shook his head then looked back at the wall. "Oh," he responded quietly. Loki let go of his wrist and Tony dropped the piece of flint. "Um, sorry, that happens." Tony pushed himself up and made his way back over to his cot. "Sorry for waking you up."

Loki grabbed his shoulder before he could get back into bed and Tony looked at him. "What was that?"

"While I usually love to toot my own horn, I don't like people seeing that side of me," Tony started, running a hand through his hair. "Back home, I'm a genius, like legit smarter than at least 90% of the world person. My mind if always moving, always thinking, always working. And sometimes it starts to overload, so I gotta get it out, work on stuff, write stuff down, make something."

"Like your weapons?" Loki gestured to the boots and gauntlets under the cot. Tony nodded.

"In a way, that's a whole other story actually, but it's a good demonstration." Tony plopped down on the edge of the bed. "If I don't get it out of my head, then it festers, it builds up," Tony scrunched his features together slightly and Loki sat down next to Tony. "The best scenario is that I just start, writing," he gestured to the wall. "It needs to get out somehow, and I'm not even aware of when I'm doing it. It's like sleep walking I guess."

"You were still asleep when you started that?" Loki asked as he glanced at the wall. The inventor had filled most the of the space between his bed and the cell entrance. Tony just nodded.

"It's better than the nightmares," he said quietly. "Again, sorry for waking you up," Tony continued before Loki could comment. "It's probably still late, so we should get some sleep, again," he flashed a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, but Loki didn't say anything.


Tony gasped for breath as long fingers wrapped around his neck, slamming his against the wall behind him. He was running out of steam, and quickly. He watched as the wraiths partner dispatched another of Loki's clones and wheezed in a breath to his aching lungs. He tried not to look at the wraith and tried to pry the bony fingers away from his throat.

He thought it a little unfair that the Yar celebrated one year of fighting with a marathon battle. This was the fifth and final pair that Tony and Loki had faced, and not only was Tony beyond tired, he was facing a wraith straight from the realm of Hel. For some reason that had set Loki off, but Tony needed to focus on not looking at the creature, lest he drop dead where he stood. Or rather was held.

Tony grit his teeth and placed one foot against the wall, the other straight down and engaged the boosters suddenly. He flew straight into the wraith, getting tangled in its robes briefly before he put his other foot down and was launched up and over it's head. The booster shorted and he tumbled to the ground quickly and rolled into it, slamming into the, extinguished, fire demon that Loki had been facing.

It turned to snarl at him, fire leaping from it's teeth, and Tony slammed one of his crushed gauntlets into it's face pushing it backwards into Loki's staff, impaling it through the chest. Loki threw the demon to the ground, stepped past Tony to face the approaching wraith.

"Odinson," the wraith hissed suddenly and Tony's head whipped back around, making sure to look past the wraith. Loki however looked it in the covered face, lip raised in a snarl. "It has been a while since I have felt your presence."

"Yes, I imagine it has been," Loki told the being. "And how long have you been absent from Hela's realm? How long have you lived with the knowledge that you are not worthy to serve under her?" The creature hissed and lashed out at Loki suddenly.

Tony had lifted his shirt and crossing exposed wires as the two had their little chat. When the wraith lashed out Loki lifted his staff, but Tony had raised a foot and fired off a repulsor shot that hit its chest. It started to laugh suddenly, but Tony merely smirked when he saw the glow inside its robes.

"You may not be susceptible to my shots, but your robes are still flammable," he announced as the robes suddenly caught, blue flames spitting out and surrounding the creature. It howled in pain suddenly and Loki reached out his hand, grow smoke flowing from his fingers to circle the wraith. The smoke rose up and when it dropped, the wraith was gone, smoking robes on the ground.

The klaxon sounded and Tony let out a breath, falling onto his back as the crowd roared in excitement. Loki knelt down and placed a hand on Tony's side, and he hissed in pain, forgetting that he had a thin dagger stuck there.

"You should heal yourself," Tony tried to push Loki's hand away, but her merely glared at him.

"What do you think I do during the battle?" Loki spat at him, but no venom laced his words. "I can heal as I fight. Would I not take the time to heal your frail body, you would surely die within hours." Tony grunted a little as Loki healed the last of the threatening wounds. The silver bracelet flashed and Loki was left in his tunic and pants. Tony took his offered hand and got to his feet as the two Yar guards came to surround them.

"I'll need tools," Tony looked at one of their guards. In the year he had been there, Loki had slowly taught him to understand the alien language. He would never be able to speak it for it required two tongues to even attempt the sounds being made. Loki then offered to cut Tony's tongue in half for him. Tony declined. "To repair my weapons."

The guard looked at him as they walked and growled out something. "It is indeed not my fault that they were damaged," Tony retorted. Because no matter where Tony was, he couldn't stop being Tony Stark. He held up his damaged gauntlet, the metal crushed, and he knew it would take some time to get it off, and the repulsor pushed out of it's setting. "There's no way that can be used again. It needs to be repaired, and I'll need some tools, some Midgardian tools that I know you have, to do it." There was another growl and Loki smirked from next to Tony.

"What!" Tony's eyes had widened a little as they walked back into the cell hallway. "Just because I need tools you'll cut my rations for a month?" Tony let out a loud sigh. "Fiiiiiine," he drawled. "I need the tools more than I need the food," he murmured and only Loki heard.

"Did you enjoy the celebration?" Tony and Loki glanced over at Jek after they had been returned to their cell. Devra held onto a sleepy baby boy.

"Oh yeah, tons of fun," Tony rolled his eyes a little, smirking slightly. "I hope I get to do it every year."

"Sorry to burst your bubble," Jek chuckled a little. "The next time it happens will be in another nine years."

"If they did it every year they'd run out of combatants," Devra added.

"Lucky us," Tony groaned loudly when he dropped onto his cot.

Tony's tools arrived the same time that dinner did. Or at least half of a dinner for Tony. He grumbled to himself but took the tool as he was still working on getting the right gauntlet off without having to cut it off. It was starting to bite into his skin though.

"So," Tony started casually as he grabbed a screwdriver over the piece of bread. At least what he thought was always bread. "On first name basis with wraiths?" He could feel Loki's eyes burrow into his skin. "I mean, it's not every day that one from the land of the dead just strikes up a conversation in the middle of-"

"Ask your question and be done with this," Loki growled out and Tony looked up. Loki didn't look angry, he looked troubled, and for once Tony was reconsidering his line of questions.

"How did that thing know you? Or maybe I should ask, how do you know Hel's ruler?" Tony was pretty sure that Loki had never talked about Hela when he had been telling Tony of his home, or what he had considered his home.

After being stuck together for a year, the two had started to open up a little with each other, and Tony learned that Loki was indeed the Loki he had heard associated with the Norse Gods. And that his brother, no, not brother anymore, was the one and only Thor. The one that had been causing some trouble in New Mexico the same time he was trying to save his own life from the arc reactor.

Tony then told him about his arc reactor, about how he got it, and what it did. Loki had listened attentively and filed away the information for later. Tony had told Loki that if something should happen to the reactor while they were fighting, that Loki should try and mend that before he lost his powers. Without then the wounds he healed would matter little. Loki had agreed.

"There have been many rumors," Loki started and Tony roused himself from his thoughts. "Although, it is no lie that Hela and I know each rather intimately. Most would say that she is my daughter, and as punishment Odin sent her to rule over Helheim."

"Is she?" Tony asked quietly.

"She is not," Loki shook his head. "Despite all the words that crossed many ears, and many tomes, I have no children. Hela and I used to be lovers," Loki stated as he leaned back on his cot, and Tony blinked. "Well, one of my lovers." He smirked a little and Tony snorted, covering his mouth to hold back the laughter.

"Now, that I can relate with," Tony added as he finally managed to pull the gauntlet off. "Oh sweet heavens," Tony relaxed as he flexed his hand. "That feels about ten times better, I'm not gonna lie." Loki snorted as he picked apart his food, eating slowly, watching Tony.

"Will you be able to fix your gauntlets?" Loki asked several moment later, watching the man still ignore his food.

"I'll be able to get them in working condition," Tony told him, sighing slightly. "I tell you, that's what I miss the most, working in my workshop." Loki watched the man face as he kept his attention on his inventions. "It was my home inside my home, somewhere I could just slip down to and kind of forget that anyone else existed." He glanced up and smiled softly at Loki, and the god saw the longing in his eyes. "It didn't matter what time it was, I knew I was welcome down there. When my thoughts and my dreams woke me up, that's where I could go."

"It would stop you from writing on the walls?" Loki asked and smirked. Tony laughed and Loki blinked a little when he felt better. Why should it matter if tried to ease the mortals mind?

"Oh well," Tony shrugged and turned his attention back to the gauntlet and it's exposed wiring. "That's worlds away, literally. I'll get back there someday, and when that happens I'm gonna show it to you."

"Your flights of fancy amuse me," Loki said with a small smile.

"Something has to," Tony shot back.