Author's Note: Before the story things, kids, just something even more important. For any readers in New York and New Jersey, or with family there who were impacted, you have so many thoughts with you right now, and help coming however we can send it. These disasters are so devastating (personal note: my town was hit in the 2011 tornado outbreaks and we're still recovering), but a new normality does come back eventually. And it seems the storm brought out some *amazing* heroes in real life.
So many thanks to my betas, Jade, Chipper, and Majoline. They made this chapter readable and saved hundreds of commas from abuse. They should seriously have a commercial, complete with a sad Sarah McLachlan song.
There were still too many empty places in the city. Too many gaps and hollows and voids from too many attacks and disasters. Even if new things rose in their place, it didn't seem enough. To Tony, there were too many blanks and not nearly enough things to ever fill them in.
Not that it stopped New Yorkers from trying.
Square patches of dirt that should have been buildings weren't because money ran out or was slow in coming or paperwork ground construction to a halt. Now they had become little forests, with old men hawking trees on Thanksgiving morning before they closed up shop for a tiny turkey and a defrosted pie. Or they sprouted villages of brightly colored tents, where vendors hawked whatever they could sell – steamed hot dogs, tamales, kitschy shirts, halfway decent coffee – anything that would earn a few dollars and put something in those places until something more permanent came along.
Not like another intergalactic villain or all-too-human terrorist or even nature wouldn't try to destroy whatever rose up in all those gaps.
At least it didn't unnerve him, Christ, terrify him the way it did before. One day the Avengers Initiative was just some half-cocked scheme of Fury's he wasn't even supposed to join, the next he was trying to save his city from an invader who didn't really seem to want the damn place at all. They won, they had their shawarma, said a welcome goodbye to Thor and his miscreant little brother, and it was all supposed to be fine.
Except it wasn't.
He should have known when the nightmares started. In Tony's dreams the city burned and the world crumbled and fell; the people he knew and gave a crap about died in horrible, unimaginable ways. He saw the Chitauri on their gliders, their bolts of light clipping the wings of Pepper's jet. He saw the plane spiral with sickening slowness to Earth; he heard her scream. He remembered his own fall, the cold and the darkness, but in his nightmares there was no Hulk to catch him.
He slipped back into old habits. Bad habits. The Avengers were gone, Pepper was consumed with the recovery efforts, and Tony insisted he was fine. He maintained the position that what happened was nothing and it would be really nice if people stopped making such a big fucking deal about it, to borrow a phrase from a politician who minced words less than he did. Tony threw himself into his work, making one suit, then another, and then another, until he had an entire army of suits, all of whom were empty and hollow as he was.
It was at a charity benefit, something Pepper had poured herself into like Tony had started pouring bottles into himself. He had one, two - or a lot - too many and had snapped, just lost it, when some stuffed shirt called him a hero. From the news reports and Tweets and dim memories, he'd decked the man, cursed him out, then nearly stumbled off the rooftop party if Pepper and Rhodey hadn't pulled him back.
There was a cold shower after they dragged him home, after which Pepper poured out every last bottle in his bar. She told him then in no uncertain terms she was getting Tony help, whether he wanted it or not. Pepper didn't have an arc reactor; she didn't have a suit; she just had herself, that was all Pepper ever really needed.
And she had Tony, she reminded him, and for the first time since Phil's funeral she cried, and for a while neither of them could stop. And even if he was red-eyed and blotchy and in the throes of the worst hangover he'd ever had, Tony felt the tiniest spark of optimism that didn't come at the bottom of a glass.
Pepper left the rebuilding of New York to less gifted but still capable hands. She organized him like she did his company. Bed by midnight. Up by 8 a.m. A diet that didn't consist of two-day old pizza punctuated by days of nothing at all. Work in his lab that was actual work, not just avoidance with power tools. And when he woke up at 3 a.m., sweating and shaking, Pepper was there, and she wouldn't take "it's nothing" for an answer.
He resented it, at first, because he was Tony Stark and he wasn't going to be treated like a child, managed like one of Pepper's assistants. He brought out the reserve bottles Pepper had no hope of finding and slunk off to the lab in the dead of night.
The next morning he woke up face first on the concrete, Pepper kicking him over with her very expensive heels. He'd screamed, he'd yelled that almost losing his city, his world, his life – almost losing her – wasn't something an early bedtime and some kale could fix. Pepper yelled that she was losing him a little more each day, and how was it possibly fair to her to put her through the kind of grief that was already consuming him.
Tony, once he was reasonably sober, dialed the number of the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist, someone who wouldn't commit him when he started talking about gods and monsters. He thought she was an idiot at first, a well-meaning idiot and a soft scientist, for God's sake. But the more he talked, the more he gave – to her, to Pepper – the less hollow he felt. The rubble inside was knocked away, and even if the land was empty, it wasn't so much a gaping maw as a place where anything was possible.
And then when Loki and the Chitauri came back, Tony managed not to fall apart. And when the world was safe, again, he swallowed his pride and he asked everyone to stay. True, there was a beaten but pissed-off demigod loose somewhere, so it made sense keeping the gang together. Maybe Pepper worked her magic behind the scenes or maybe they were all just taken with his charm, but they all said yes.
In those two years, Tony had stepped back from the brink he always seemed to be falling into. So...maybe it wasn't completely crazy to think Loki could begin to do the same.
Okay, it was completely insane. Backsliding into the bottle wasn't exactly the same as trying to take over the world. But they'd both left carnage in their wake, lives and worlds wrecked in their own way.
Who was Tony to let this chance go?
Only a supervillain could look intimidating while a four-year-old kid with a bright blue knit monstrosity on her head practically yanked his arm down to the ground as she tried to wriggle free.
"Daaaaaaad! It's Iron Man!"
"So it is. If we close our eyes, maybe he'll go away." Kara squirmed and tugged but Loki didn't give, his eyes very much open and very much glaring in Tony's direction.
"Relax, Reindeer Games. It's just me. Harmless, suitless me." Tony wiggled his fingers at Loki's tenacious offspring. "Hiya kid. What are you and your dad up to?"
"Suitless, perhaps, but I doubt you are what one would ever call harmless." There might not be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hiding in the bushes, but Loki was sure as hell acting like there were. And either Kara was stronger than she looked or Loki's paranoia was finite, as the little mass of coat and boots and curls came hurling at Tony.
"We had to go to the store cause daddy's making a ca- a cassa- cause daddy's making the green bean thing to bring to Thanksgiving with Stephen and George and Connie and Oscar and Alice and I asked if we could get donuts and we got donuts but daddy didn't let me get a bear donut because he's mean." Kara remembered to breathe and Tony smirked as he watched Loki's face twist in embarrassed indignation. "Where's Captain America?"
"I told them to get Thanksgiving catered but no, there's a gaggle of people in my kitchen who hopefully aren't burning the place down. So Cap's probably trying to make an apple pie, I'm sure." Tony grinned but was surprised to get a scowl not only from Mr. Sourpuss, but a Sourpuss Junior. "Wait. Are you seriously mad Cap's not here?"
Kara pursed her lips. "I'm a little mad. And maybe serious." Tony valiantly tried to stifle his laughter just in case Loki finally lost whatever patience he had and blasted him into next week. "You should bring him next time."
"Will do." Tony raised an eyebrow. Adopted or not, the annoyed little girl had a damn uncanny resemblance to a certain cranky Norse god. "She certainly knows what she wants."
"She doesn't suffer fools lightly." Loki crossed his arms across his chest. "I can't imagine where she picked that up from. What in the world do you want Stark?"
"Oh, there's a lot of things. A comfortable pair of socks, the cover of GQ – again, the Nobel Peace Prize. They're working on that. But we could use a little chat." Tony looked down to Kara, poking at his shoes with her tiny blue boots, and he suddenly wished he'd brought Cap because, as if this conversation already wasn't ridiculously awkward, having it in earshot of the little girl only ratcheted his discomfort up to an 11.
"Daddy needs to have a talk," Loki said to the little third wheel and it still jarred Tony six ways to Sunday to hear him say that word, even if Tony was the Avenger who doubted it the least. He handed his phone to a clearly appeased Kara. "Why don't you go sit over there and try to beat my score on Fruit Ninja and, if you're very good, we'll go get that bear claw."
Kara ran to the bench so fast Tony expected to hear sonic booms.
"As I've just promised my child a donut bigger than her head, this had best be a matter of life or death. If it's not, I'm sure that could be easily arranged."
Tony hadn't backed down from Loki when he had his Glow Stick of Destiny; he sure as hell wasn't going to cave when the demigod was only packing some cans of cream of mushroom soup. That was besides the fact doing more than hurling insults would make the agreement null and void.
"Beyond the fact that Pepper would beyond furious if her kitchen dictatorship doesn't result in the perfect Thanksgiving, I want to be sure everyone in the city can suffer from indigestion and mediocre football in peace and quiet."
"Let's see, Stark. Doom is dealing with some unexpected technical difficulties in Latveria. I just spent ten minutes arguing with a slack-jawed teenager about whether I needed fresh green beans or canned. The only evil I have planned is plotting Ryan Seacrest's slow and painful death post-parade, but I think that's rather a shared sentiment. I think whatever you and your lot have planned, or however the masses plan to spend today indulging in gluttony, you're safe from any interruption today." Loki narrowed his eyes. "You really needed to come down from your lofty heights to mine to figure that out?"
"You know, I'm really getting more a God of Pithy Snark vibe from you rather than this whole God of Lies… thing. Though if I was in your little pantheon – which could so bring the world back to polytheism – I'd beat you on the withering sarcasm front." Tony shuffled his feet, wishing the thankfully few passers-by would just pass by already. "It's been a few weeks since we've seen you. You don't write, you don't call. You don't smash down any buildings, which I admit, is a nice change. But besides the fact it's my ass, in theory, on the line with this whole deal, it's more like this city's ass on the line. A lot of people would really like it if one less megalomaniac tried to blow their homes up. So I want to be sure you're really in on this deal before you have the chance to screw it up."
Loki's face twisted into that oh-so familiar look of smug, mocking pity, and Tony wondered, probably not for the last time, if punching said face would constitute a breach of their little agreement. "Such noble sentiment, but I somehow wonder if you aren't more concerned what your one-eyed overlord is going to do if you fail, or if he catches wind of our détente."
Tony laughed, the sound as sharp and bitter as the breeze that rustled the few stubborn leaves clinging to the branches overhead. "You think I'm worried about Fury? Compared to some of the truly lovely people I've had to deal with in my life, you included, Fury is a fluffy bunny in an eyepatch. And I think between us, I'm not the one with the most to lose."
"At least I act as if she's something to lose."
Tony blinked and shook his head. "Excuse me?"
"Even the petty thieves in this city know you're Iron Man. I fell from a void in the universe and it took me moments to know who to target, and just where I should strike him. You have just as much at stake as me, and yet it's not the human who is breathtakingly more discrete."
Tony gave Loki a tight little smile. "You done there?"
"For the moment."
"Okay. A, I'm not going to hide being Iron Man. You're a little less ashamed when you're one of the good guys. B, what part of my personality is discrete? And C, and I hate to say this, but even if I hid behind the suit, someone would find out. They always do. At least this way they know if they mess with me, or my stuff, they're in for a world of hurt."
Loki snorted, but Tony had seen his hands tighten, just a bit, at point C. "No wonder Thor loves this realm so much. You all are such slaves to sentiment. You wear your heart on your sleeve."
"Yeah, well at least it means I have one. Because without them, I don't." Without Pepper, without Rhodey, hell, without everybody, Tony was as hollow as his suit. "And that's a trade-off that might really suck sometimes when it puts them in danger, but it just makes me want to protect them even more. And then you start seeing they aren't the only ones who need protecting. It's a vicious cycle of unselfishness, but it's better than the alternative."
"Which I'm assuming would be me."
"Basically. Well, more the you that was a selfish asshole who tried to bring the Earth down with you twice. But the you I'm talking to now, even if you're still an asshole, has two things that might just make a difference."
"And what would that be? A spacious apartment and sophisticated wardrobe?"
"You don't ever stop, do you?" Tony wondered, briefly, if this is what Pepper's life was like. "And even though, for an extraterrestrial, you have impeccable taste in fashion, you damn well know what I mean. You have a second chance. And you have something maybe even more important." That something happily kicked her booted feet up and down as she mashed purposely on Loki's phone, giggling and squealing every few minutes. "You have someone to make that second chance mean a hell of a lot more."
"Why thank you, Stark, for your enlightening observation." Loki's words were sharp but not jagged, the edges not rounded but at least blunted. "I never would have thought such a thing without your help." Loki leaned in, and Tony did his damndest to stand tall against the lanky, leaning man. "I have no love for you. I have a handful of things that keep me from completely hating this miserable realm. But for her, and only for her, I will try to uphold our little bargain."
"Nuh-uh," Tony retorted, pushing a finger against Loki's chest, praying it came back still attached. "We have a saying here on this miserable realm: Do, or do not. There is no try. If I'm not half-assing this, you don't get to either."
"And what human sage came up with that truly insightful bit of wisdom," Loki asked, the sarcasm practically oozing from every syllable.
"Master…you know, the name really isn't important," Tony muttered from beneath his hand, which had survived its encounter intact. "But seriously, trying is for the weak, which doesn't include either of us. Well, it definitely doesn't include me." Tony cleared his throat, finding it suddenly dry. "I wouldn't have made the deal in the first place, or come back here, if I didn't think at least part of you could do something… different." Something less destructive. Maybe even decent.
Maybe whatever tiny shred was left of Tony's naïveté would even hope for something good.
"Your faith in me is touching," Loki said, eyes clearly wanting to roll out of their sockets. "But what if it's entirely misplaced?"
"You saying 'what if' makes me think it's not." Tony took a step back as the champion of slicing fruit with virtual swords ran back, brandishing her high score and a brilliant smile, to Loki. "And if it is, we've got a Hulk for that."
"Thank you so much for reminding me." Loki's deadpan scowl warmed to a wry smile as he took the phone, admitting Kara was, indeed, the better ninja. "As much as I'd love to continue this conversation, I believe we have a bear claw to purchase."
Kara let out a shriek of joy and Tony did not envy Loki one bit the imminent sugar rush he would be facing.
"Bye!" If it was Steve here, it'd be a damn hard choice between saying goodbye and getting that donut. It was nice Tony knew where he stood. "Tell Captain America Happy Thanksgiving!"
"If he doesn't burn down the kitchen I will." Tony patted the blue hat-like thing on her head as Kara hugged his knee. "You and your dad have a good Thanksgiving too, okay? Make sure you watch the parade and something with Charlie Brown." Tony smirked as Kara ran back to Loki and the promise of even more unhealthy breakfast foods. "Just remember what it's all about. Being thankful, and stuffing yourself full of turkey."
"Oh, I've had enough of feasts for one life," Loki said with a dismissive shake of his head. And even if he didn't say anything about gratitude, maybe nothing needed to be said. Not when she was right there, tugging at her father's hand. "Just what are you thankful for?"
"I'm here. That's good enough," Tony said. But what he was really thankful for was this year, this year of wonders and chances and the tiniest of hopes.
He was thankful.
Thankful... and absolutely terrified.