There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part IX: Fury's Furor

a total stranger one black day
knocked the living hell out of me-

e.e. cummings' "a total stranger one black day"

The case.

He'd brought it as a precaution, a quote on quote preemptive strike, just in case, and now Tony needed to find it, quick, before-

The door slid open for him, and he was yanked back by the collar, slammed face-first into the adjacent wall. He grimaced, forced into it by the unknown entity, and all of a sudden he felt the unfamiliar and terrifyingly cold clink of metal around his wrists.

"Stark is detained." The SHIELD agent behind him spoke. Tony couldn't get a good glimpse of him. "Small resistance and-" The agent forced him over, opened his eyes with violating fingers. "No trace of any mind-control."

Tony ground out sarcastically, "You know, this is a little much for a first date. You could've at least brought some wine, maybe some cheese fondue."

The agent paid him no attention, listening intently to the voice on the other end of his receiver. Even from here, Tony could distinguish Fury's growly, irritating tones. The agent's grip was harsh and terrible, like a bear trap, all those crushing fingers around his wrists.

"I copy that, sir." The agent said after a brief moment, wrenching Tony off the wall and towards the elevator. Two more agents seemed to appear from the shadows, settling guns back into their holsters.

Tony made no quips to them, only thought in quick, erratic and awful strands of thought that somewhere else in this tower, another agent was finding a God of Mischief by a window, another agent was maybe raising their gun and-

He truncated the thought before it went any further, cutting it off as easily as he could've cut hair.

"We should bag him." One of the other agents said. A woman.

The one with his hands all over Tony's wrists replied, "No. Fury said not to."

"You mean he didn't specify," The agent shot back, thin-lipped and sneering. "He's helping a war criminal. Forget proper etiquette, he deserves none of it."

Tony, because he had a notorious reputation for being unable to keep his mouth shut, said, "I'd appreciate it if you bagged me actually. Your face is a little..." He swayed his head back and forth, in favor of the shaking hand motion that he could not, at present, do.

The agent's lips curled back even more, and her eyes switched to the man behind Tony.

"Bag him." He allowed, and all of a sudden there was black.

Fury was the first person he saw, when the bag was lifted off his head. Arms crossed and stance stiff and standing in front of him inside a room that seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be a jail cell. There wasn't any furnishings in there, except the uncomfortable metal chair that Tony filled.

His arms ached behind his back, and he quipped, "A call might've been nice. My office hours are still between eight and two every other Thursday."

That single eye narrowed, "I did call, Stark."

"Yeah, I suppose you did." Tony shrugged, which was difficult to do. "And what was that about? Tesseract traces?"

"It was about the war criminal that's shacked up in your tower." Fury loomed over him. "Suppose you wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?"

"What war criminal?" Tony queried, eyebrows raised. "All I've got in my tower is a refugee and some Norse god, and myself."

"Thor's gone." Fury said, and each word was serrated on the edges, inflexible in its tone. "Wouldn't put up much of a fight after Loki turned himself in. Didn't say anything either. And isn't that just... strange?"

Tony laughed, shifted uncomfortably, jangling his handcuffs in search of a mistake, "Right. Don't lie to me, Fury. I know a lot more about this right now than you do."

That seemed to exasperate Fury, slap a sore spot, for his fingers dug into his arms and his eyebrows furrowed. Tony pulled at his handcuffs, searching and searching for a way out of them, though he knew there wouldn't be a way out of this. Yet. He just hoped that some of his well-worn charm would rub off on Fury.

"Who told you about all this?" Tony asked, tilting his head. There was a little bit of genuine curiosity there, though he figured it out in a heartbeat. "Wait, don't tell me? Romanov? Knew I messed up somehow there."

Fury nodded, "She noticed you were acting off when she came to check up on you. Of course, it was only a matter of time before SHIELD figured the rest of it out. The Tesseract traces, your behavior, the activity in New Mexico..."

"Believe me, Fury," Tony said, then. "Keeping the angry, wounded god around for long wasn't a plan."

"Keeping him around at all should have never been a plan!" Fury snapped, leaning forward like he were going to strangle Tony. Tony wouldn't have blamed him for it if had, too. He was very strangle-able. "Do you understand what he did, Stark? The damage he's caused? He took our world and tilted it on its axis, do you understand?"

Fury emphasized the last part of the sentence, pressed upon it with sheer vehemence, looking utterly... well, furious, and yet... Tony couldn't tell if there was anything deeper there, past the anger. Fury was as closed to him as a padlocked chest. As closed off to him as Loki was, as ironic as that seemed.

"Com-pren-do," Tony retorted, slowing down each syllable, like he were talking down to Fury. Well, up, from this vantage point. "But right now?" He shook his head. "You seen him? He's not fit to play Lincoln Logs with the world. Not anymore."

Fury's face loosened up, though his single eye still held Tony under serious scrutiny, "And just what did happen to Loki, Stark?" Fury paused, and added, "He finally get what was coming to him?"

"Get what was coming to him?" Tony echoed, hollowly. His insides writhed, and his body felt like someone had thrown a lit match to his bones. "Not sure anyone quite deserves what happened to him, Blackbeard. Not even by SHIELD's shitty standards."

Fury shot him a look a disbelief, cast his gaze across all the room incredulously, like he couldn't believe what Stark had just said. What he had just given voice.

"Look on the bright side," Tony continued, feeling and sounding particularly prickly. "This is what you wanted right? Out of Thor? For someone else to do your dirty work? Well, congratu-fuckin'-lations!"

Tony tried to recline in the chair like he were in a throne, legs spread out stick-straight ahead of him and eyes trained on Fury, like maybe he could make the eye-patched man implode from it. With hope.

That eye returned to Tony then, with all its skepticism, "Thor and Loki did come to us peacefully, but there hasn't been a word out of either of them."

"Scarface won't talk about what happened to him," Tony supplied, watching Fury carefully and incisively, for any change in tone or stance or anything, really. "And Thor's only gonna give you the barest facts."

"I'm aware." Said Fury, and he uncrossed his arms. "Loki has a list of issues as long as my-"

"Nose?" Tony interjected just as Fury said, "Arm."

The glare he got in exchange for that remark was pointed indeed, but Tony just gave him his best stiff smile, eyebrows waggled.

"He trust you, Stark?"

"What?"

Fury leaned in then, a hand on his hip and his eye narrowed to a point, "I said, Does. He. Trust. You?"

"I expect a lot of bullshit outta you," Said Tony. "But that, that's going a little too far, even by your standards."

"You trust him," Fury said, and the words came out like slithering, oily snakes. "You're a little too quick to defend someone that tried to turn us all into his personal pets."

"Nah," Tony was smooth about it. "I'm just quick to defend someone that's... almost literally been to hell and back. Pardon me for personal decency."

"Considering your relationship with decency, Stark, you can excuse me for not associating you with it."

"You're excused. Just bring me with you."

The corner of Fury's lips twitched.

Tony spoke quickly and tartly, "Listen, the plan is to keep him around until he-"

Fury interrupted, "Turns the world into his sandbox again?"

Grinding his teeth, Tony continued, "Until he gets better."

He genuinely expected Fury to yell at him, to explode and to scream awful, bitter things at him about the greater good, or whatever, but instead the director put a hand to his forehead and let out a long, bland sigh that seemed to have a finality to it, if anything.

"You do anything to Loki," Tony said, definite in every word. "And Thor will make sure Asgard brings all its wrath onto Midgard. Fire in the rain and acidic water and all that apocalyptic noise."

It was a threat, if anything else. Meaningless, maybe, but he wouldn't put it past Thor. No, he wouldn't have put it past him at all. It was almost depressing, that thought.

Fury mulled this over. Tony could almost see the machinations and manipulations working around in his head, like little physical cartoon cogs. But he could also see that the threat, meaningless as it was to Tony, was heavier on Fury. Because yeah, it did hold weight.

Tony wouldn't put it past Thor to break an entire world for Loki's safety. He wouldn't, and he couldn't and Fury was done thinking now, hands on his hips.

"We'll quarantine him in Stark Tower." Fury said, dead as could be. "But-"

"There's always a but, isn't there?" Tony sighed.

"But," Fury continued, sharper this time. "We'll call in the rest of the Avengers."

That, Tony hadn't expected.

"What?"

"Better safe than sorry, Stark." Was Fury's response, eyebrows drawn down. "We've been tracking their movements since the Battle of New York. Same as you."

"And here I thought I was special."

Fury laughed, slowly, "I'll pass it on to Thor." And he drew a ring of strangely tumbled keys from his coat pocket, jangled them around before uncuffing Tony.

Before he left, as Tony wrung the chafes around his wrist, Fury said, finally, "And Stark?"

"Yeah?"

"If this goes south, which it likely will," He inclined his head to the man behind him. "It's all on you."

Thor's eyes hadn't moved from the surveillance over his brother, Tony noticed. He looked as though he'd been rooted there, to the ground, in the center of SHIELD's New York headquarters. A great, bumbling and blond tree that worried overly-much.

"Anthony," Thor said, finally breaking the stare. SHIELD agents seemed to give him a wide berth. "I am told I have you to thank for... for my brother's sanctuary."

"Don't mention it." Tony replied, wrinkling his nose slightly. He had never been accustomed to a thanks of any kind. "Let's just hope I don't live to regret it, yeah?"

Those eyes of Thor's darkened, and he looked... well, stormy. It made something hard form in Tony's throat.

"Yes." Thor said, the word unwieldy within itself. "I only hope that it may not come to... that."

"Fury tell you that he's calling in the rest of us?" Tony asked, switching up the subject. "For this?"

"My brother is in no shape to... cause this realm any more unrest. I do not understand why your director insists on calling on the Avengers." Thor crossed his arms, and a hurt look flashed across his face. "I... that is to say, I do not mean that it would not be good to see my friends again... however-"

"Not like this, right?" Tony felt like he were crawling towards something entirely chick-flicky and ludicrous, and he could only respond with spongy statements like, "It's all good."

Thor's eyes returned to the surveillance image, and the screen flickered. Loki's head turned up and if Tony hadn't known any better, he would have sworn that Loki were staring straight at him. Loki, with that battered body and harsh eyes. Loki, whose mere presence was Sturm und Drang.

Loki, who was unbearably like Tony, and whom Tony almost feared, daft as it seemed.

Tony visited Loki.

The visit itself was ill-advised, mostly by Fury and partly by Thor - Thor mentioned that Loki had gone with SHIELD as quietly and purposelessly as a dog, though not in those words.

Loki had been held in a holding cell not dissimilar to Tony's, minus Fury breathing in the air and the tied up thing and all.

"Leave me." Was the first sentence that came out of Loki.

"You sure you don't want any company?" Tony asked, pacing back and forth, though his eyes never left the still form in the center of the room. "I want some company."

Loki looked normal, for the most part, and Tony's eyes had scanned him up and down for visible bruises sans the mottled, old yellow ones from his previous experiences with captors. There was something utterly rigid about him, however. Arthritic.

"I am told you are to be my chaperone." Loki said, quietly. His eyes followed Tony around the room. "I do not trust you."

Tony's puzzlement must have shown on his face, for Loki continued, "You said you would not allow them to take me."

"I tried."

Loki exploded, abrasive and loud, "That is not good enough!"

Tony flinched, made his fear obvious, and Loki's face crumpled for a split-second before his lips broke into a maimed, rough smile. It was a shark's smile, a predator's.

Loki's voice was coarse, scratchy, "You fear me."

Tony made a pfft sound, and then, "In the same way I fear falling off a building. You can't hurt me."

That faux sadism faltered, just a little bit, and Loki's face changed. It become something despondent and discordant all at once, furling in on itself like darkness in a sunrise.

"Go." Loki commanded.

And Tony, through traitorous feet, did as he was told.

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