A/N: Well here it is! Not much to say except apologize for any OOC-ness that I know is there. It's been forever since I watched Iron Man.
Disclaimer For Entire Fic: I do not own! I do not own Avengers, or Thor, or Marvel or any of the characters in this story!
-/-
Loki woke with a start, or he tried to. But the motion, quite predictably, jarred his injured body. A searing pain shot through his chest and head. Groaning, he let his head fall back to the pillows and closed his eyes to block out the light. He began to evaluate his situation. He wasn't hurt nearly as bad as he earlier thought. The process had been stopped prematurely and thus saved Loki from extreme injury. He was mostly sore, agonizingly so, yes, but not to bad in the grander scheme of things. He would be able to leave the wretched medical wing in no longer than a few days.
"That was quite the beating you took."
Loki was forced to open his eyes once more to identify the speaker, the genius playboy billionaire philanthropist known as Tony Stark. Loki immediately put on a piercing glare.
Tony chuckled, "Hey now, don't give me that look. If it weren't for me and my medical equipment you could, would be dead."
Loki didn't respond.
Tony smiled again, "Well then. So much for breaking the ice," he laughed at his horrible joke.
Loki pushed it up a notch and sent Tony a death glare.
Just then, Thor entered the small room, "Brother! You are finally awake!" his face turned serious, "Tell me what happened. I thought the deal was sound, you said they wouldn't dare attack yet! What made them do so?"
Loki rolled his eyes. Poor, naïve Thor. He still thinks of the world in such black and white terms. He seems to constantly forget that Loki is the God Of Lies. And therefore his knack for lying was not canceled out simply because he joined the 'good' side. It happens to be very convenient when he needed to get a worried not-brother off his back. And how was he supposed to know that Omega had plotted all of this? That they had tricked him, the master trickster and-
"Loki?"
The god broke from his inner rant long enough to reply, "Unforeseen complications, Thor. Nothing less, nothing more. Not everything can be predicted. It was not forced. They merely requested a test of my loyalty. I thought I was supposed to gain their trust for our original plan to work. I'm sure it would have been fine if you hadn't charged in," it wouldn't have. Hours more of the endless, torturous procedure until his very life snapped free into an endless void...Omega's intentions were anything but harmless. But Loki decided he need not say so. He may be working with them, but that didn't mean he had to tell them everything. Irrational as it was, secrets were his only fall-back, his only safety...
Thor didn't miss a beat, "Loki, I may not know very well anymore, and I've even questioned whether or not I ever did, but what I do know is that you are lying."
Since when had Thor developed a brain? Because right now was one of the worst times for that to suddenly happen.
Loki sighed, "It's nothing you need to be concerned about. Injuries are part of being one of Midgard's 'protectors', is it not?"
Thor also sighed. That was Loki speak for 'You are right but there's no way in Niffleheim I'm going to admit it.' Slowly, he walked over to the side of the bed.
"Loki, we need this information so we can stop Omega. We need the truth. We are a team, brother! You are here, helping Earth! And there's obviously nowhere else you could possibly go where people would even dare tolerate you! This is the only chance you have and I suggest you take it!"
Loki shrunk back slightly, stung at the sheer frustration in the words. Of course, he quickly composed himself and sent back his own seething reply, "You think I don't know that? The nine realms have done nothing but-"
"INTERCEPTION!" Tony yelled, causing the other two to look at him. Awkward silence imminent.
"Listen, you two. If you keep fighting we'll get no where fast. Both of you have some merit to your argument, but it's really not necessary now. We have time. And Thor, back down," a bit of anger slipped into his tone, "The last thing Loki needs is to be shot down by you."
Thor said nothing and stomped from the room.
-/-
Steve yawned as he walked down the stairs. He still hadn't heard the results of the investigation of the latest Omega base. For a new criminal organization, they were gaining power alarmingly fast. He had already seen both Thor and Tony milling about, so it seemed like everything was alright. Thor has seemed a little down, but that was probably because they'd ran out of PopTarts the other day.
He entered the kitchen and casually grabbed a cookie off a platter on the counter. One of the cabinets was smashed, it's contents spilling onto the floor. Steve payed it no mind and turned to sit at the table with a box of cereal in hand.
"Hey Steve," Tony said.
Steve responded in kind, "Hello," and took a bite from his cookie.
Tony shifted in his seat and stirred the leftover syrup on his plate with his fork, "Oh yeah. Loki was nearly killed during that mission he was sent on. Some sort of magic-sucky-thingy machine. And Thor decided to be a jerk for a day."
Steve choked on his cookie, "What?"
Tony smiled, "It's a long story. Well, actually it's pretty short. Loki was injured by Omega for some obscure reason he naturally refuses to tell us, and apparently misinformation makes Thor a little moody. I just hope that doesn't trigger some path of destruction, because I just barely got those new walls installed after the last one."
Steve managed not to die at the hands of double-chocolate-chip and simply nodded. Walls happened to be a luxury the captain enjoyed, and would like them to remain where they were.
Tony continued to speak with a more serious tone, "It shouldn't have happened, Steve. I went through thousands of precautions to insure that he would be as safe as possible! But this Demni managed to still get to Loki in a fraction of the time it took me to set everything up. I don't like this. Omega seems to be worse than we thought."
They sat in silence for a minute, thinking.
"Okay! Getting off my soapbox," Tony mumbled and began to leave the kitchen. Steve nodded once again and stared at his bowl, mulling over the information.
-/-
The Iron Man strode down the long hallways of Stark Mansion. He was running through quick checks of the house on a small device. He hadn't walked long when JARVIS chimed in.
"Sir."
Tony sighed, "Yes JARVIS?"
The AI continued,"You said earlier that you ran through multiple precautions to insure Loki's safety on the mission. Something not usually done with other members of the Avengers. Also, you said I, not we. This has happened several times since Loki joined the team. I simply wished to know the reason so I could incorporate it into other situations?"
"Shut up JARVIS."
-/-
A/N: And there! I'm sorry these chapters are always so short, but I have limited time to type these things. Though I have found that typing goes much faster when listening to songs people have set to Loki tributes and such :)
And thanks so much for all of you who reviewed! I got WAY more than my strong estimate of 0.