Chapter 14


"…what the… OH GOD! WHAT THE HECK?!"

Loki whimpered slightly pathetically as the noise of someone's unnecessarily loud shout bounced around inside his very tender head. What the heck indeed. He made to get up and teach this obviously lesser being a thing or two about not yelling when people were sleeping, but sitting up appeared to be the wrong thing to do.

Not only were the blindingly while walls and pale tiled floor he was apparently lying on unfamiliar, but the straight lines that usually defined such things as walls didn't really want to co-operate with him right now – they swayed and warped out of shape in a way that was highly disconcerting and slightly nauseating. He took in the slightly squiggly looking toilet bowl beside him and paired it with the splitting headache and his current state of health (or lack thereof) and decided that the most likely cause of his situation was that he drank too much and spent the night in the bathroom of the inn. He reached into his mind to recall some memory of the events of the previous evening, but his head came back with nothing but relentless pounding. Or perhaps that was the pounding of approaching footsteps he was hearing.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me…" came a second voice.

Oh, he'd almost forgotten about the voice that had so rudely woken him from his drunken stupor. He sought out the source of the noise and froze as he took in the two beings in the doorway. They looked just about as shocked to see him as he was to see them. He blinked a couple of times, hoping that he was imagining this, but they remained consistent, if not a little warped in his vision.

He coughed and managed to spit out "This isn't possible." His voice was gravelly and rough, almost as if someone had taken the liberty of rubbing it down with sandpaper while he had been asleep.

Their wide-eyed shock was a mirror of how Loki felt. "You're telling me." The first voice said.

All of a sudden, the events of the previous night seemed a whole lot more important to the dishevelled god. Because really, it wasn't every day that you woke up in a completely different realm from the one you had started in with no recollection of how you got there. And it was particularly unusual (and extremely annoying) for the place you wake to be none other than Tony Stark's bathroom floor. He struggled to his feet, his body fighting him the whole way.

Tony, the owner of the first voice, stepped into the bathroom in panic and held up his hands in a way that said 'stay'. "Nonononono, that's not a good idea… How about you just stay sitting…?"

Loki's attempt to tower menacingly over the shorter man was cut when the additional height made the room lurch violently. From the door, Bruce Banner took a great interest in how quickly the god's face could change from sickly pale to a substantially more sickly shade of green. Both men looked away as he swiftly spun, dropped to his knees and emptied his stomach into the porcelain bowl.

Tony pulled a face at Bruce and asked under his breath: "What the hell are we supposed to do with this?!'"

Loki coughed and turned to glare at him, but under the current circumstances, the full force of the Loki-glare was strangely lacking. "This wasn't part of my plan." He said.

Tony laughed at that. "No, really? I know it's every bad guy's dream to come and be sick in my bathroom. I would have expected you sooner if it wasn't for the fact that, well, you're meant to be dead."

Bruce levelled a disapproving look at Loki. "You know, Thor's still upset."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Of course he would, he's Thor. But it was this or rot in a cell for the rest of my life, and frankly I have better things to do with my time."

"Like getting off your face and sleeping over on my bathroom floor?"

Bruce muttered under his breath "Which is something you would never do…"

Tony spun around. "Hey! Whose side are you on?!"

The doctor smirked and turned to Loki. "So, why are you here? … and how?"

"Well," he looked thoughtful, "when a man and a woman love each other very much…"

"That's not what he meant!" Tony snapped.

"Oh?" Loki smiled innocently. Then a dark look crossed his face. "Though I'm actually not sure how that works for Jotun…"

A frown passed between Tony and Bruce. "How did you come to be here, on this floor, in Stark Tower, on Earth?" Bruce clarified.

He looked unhappily up at them. "I have absolutely no idea and that bothers me more than you know."

Tony snorted. "Looks fairly obvious from here. You got drunk and did some magic and now you don't remember it."

The green eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes, that is what it looks like. But I don't believe I'm capable of such a journey in such an… incapacitated state. It is more than difficult enough while clear headed, and this is not a journey I would have willingly made, no matter how much ale I had consumed."

Bruce looked thoughtful.

Tony just asked "And how much did you consume?"

Loki met their eyes, hoping they would believe him though knowing better than to expect it. "That's the thing, I don't remember consuming anything."


Author's Note: This story has been moved to the Avenger's section. Plot bunnies picked up my story and ran with it. Please Revieeeeew :)