Saga

by Teyke

Tony falls into the closing portal, but he doesn't make it out the other side before it snaps shut. Trapped in a universe where time runs oddly when mortals blink, and accompanied by a Not-Quite-Dead Steve Rogers, Tony mouths off to a goddess of death, goes cross-dressing with Thor and Loki - and may have caused the end of the universe as they know it.

2. Thrymskvitha

"Thor?" Steve said, sounding both surprised and jubilant. He quickly jogged over, and for his effort was rewarded with what would have been a rib-shattering hug if given to anybody else – teenager or no, Thor was still built. Between the dress and the flag-cum-kilt, they made a good pair, although Thor definitely had Steve beat out for style. The dress was long and flowing, with golden threads interwoven in a dazzling pattern that was at once beautiful and – Tony tilted his head, considering it – yup, assuming that that the metal wasn't actually gold, the dress was definitely meant to provide significant protection to the wearer. Well, not-a-teenager-Thor-in-a-world-of-at-least-partial-sanity had managed to pull off mail that was actually sculpted to his biceps, so Tony supposed it wasn't surprising.

The boobs, though, those were a bit surprising, unless it was stuffing. Tony squinted again. If it was stuffing, it was done by a very experienced drag-queen, and Tony had known and appreciated the art of some of the finest. They didn't tend to sport half-grown beards, admittedly, but then Thor was also wearing a headpiece, and Tony deduced from gauzy scarves and beaded hooks that, although they had been knocked completely askew, they were meant to conceal Thor's face. Probably for the best; even if he'd had the dignity to shave the beard off, Thor would have had to go to quite a lot of work to pull off a merely androgynous look, let alone feminine.

"Ah, and the Man of Iron!" Thor set Steve back on the ground firmly – Steve's knees buckled – and strode over to clap Tony on the shoulder. It was a blow that made Tony fully appreciate just how strong Steve's legs must be, if the finely sculpted muscles had not already ensured that; if the armor had been powered, he might have been able to stay upright, but unpowered his stability engineering was no match for the strength of a Norse god. Tony went toppling over, only to be caught and hauled upright again before he could hit the ground.

"Ah, my apologies!" Thor cried. "I misjudged my strength against your suit. Forgive me, my friend," he peered worriedly at Tony's faceplate, "but although I know I have not yet met you, I had thought your armor better able to withstand such mild blows."

"Well if I wasn't completely out of power – " Tony flipped his faceplate up and caught a whiff of Thor's breath. "Are you drunk?" he asked incredulously. By all reports Thor was stronger, healed faster, and was generally all-round more indestructible than a super soldier, and Tony had read the reports about how quickly Rogers metabolized alcohol. Though... Thor being drunk would explain a lot.

"Aye, indeed!" Thor confirmed a moment later, clapping him on the shoulder again with less force, although still enough to make Tony stagger. He turned to give Steve, who had joined them, the same treatment. "T'would be unreasonable to expect the Lady Freyja to be sent to her doom unsupported by naught but her maidservants – although, of course, it is unreasonable to think that she would be sent at all, as if any in Asgard would allow it!" He sounded indignant about this. "But jǫtnar are cowardly wretches, and no doubt they think us no better. Come, my friends! Your presence must surely be the reason that my brother diverted the bridge here."

"Wait, Loki?" Steve asked. Above them, clouds were already forming. Thor had a grip on both of their shoulders; Steve barely winced, but Tony was pretty sure he was going to have dents in his armor.

"Wait a minute," he babbled. Going up against Loki un-armoured – well, okay, he'd pulled that trick earlier, walking into Stark Tower, and gotten defenestrated for his trouble, thank you very much. But that had been his tower, and the Mark VII had come to his rescue – which was very much not a possibility this time –

The rainbow returned, and Tony had only a moment to wish that he'd spent the time putting his faceplate back down rather than objecting, because holy crap why did these people not invent a capsule, people were not meant to be exposed to the raw forced of interstellar, inter-realm, inter-whatever travel, all the colours rushing past them far faster than any single hue could register and pulling them along with such force that he felt his bones quiver, the skin on his face flattening like he'd opened the faceplate while cruising along at Mach 2, and his brains were going to leak out the ears –

They arrived – materialized? – at their destination, and Thor's grip was all that kept Tony on his feet. On Thor's other side, Steve looked distinctly pale and nauseous, and quickly clapped a hand over his mouth. Tony sympathized; he, too, felt like vomiting all over the faux-golden (alien technology meaning that it was probably worth more than actual gold) floor.

"That headdress must be reinforced before we leave for Jǫtunheimr, or our ruse shall be seen through immediately," said a feminine voice in an accent far more refined than Thor's. Tony's head snapped around, his worries of throwing up forgotten as he slammed down the faceplate – not that the suit would give him much protection against Loki, not without any weapons. Out of the corner of his eye, before the faceplate reduced his range of vision, he saw Steve slide into a combat stance.

"As you say, brother," Thor said sheepishly, leaving Tony and Steve to stride over to Loki – who was also wearing a dress, and pulling it off quite a bit better than Thor did, because despite Thor calling Loki 'brother', Tony was damn sure that this Loki was, in fact, currently a woman. Those cheekbones hadn't been quite shaped like that back in New York, and youth didn't explain thatmuch of a difference. Well, he was supposed to be a shapeshifter, wasn't he? She? If he changed forms, did he also change pronouns, or was that one of those things that would get him yelled at by Pepper for being insensitive to LGBTQ people? Or would not changing pronouns – aw, fuck it, Tony certainly wasn't asking that, not when there were more important questions at hand, like what the hell, Thor, he betrayed –

Hold on.

Back up. Come on, they were so obviously teenagers.

Tony groaned. "Wrong tense," he muttered. "G – aw, fuck it."

"Thor, what are you doing," Steve said, as tense as a wire. "That's – "

But it couldn't be the wrong tense – Thor knew who they were... even as he'd said he hadn't. But myths, legends, and prophecies were seemingly coming to light all over; knowledge of the future was nothing special here. The timelines were all wrong for what he knew, and apparently for what Steve knew, but if this was a different reality...

Tony had read the transcript of Thor's interview with Coulson on the helicarrier; he knew Loki's (the Loki from his world's) story. It was filled with Daddy issues and always being smarter than everyone around you and always feeling different. One step to the left – it might have been Tony telling the world to kneel, because it wasn't as if he hadn't thought about it, how much better the world could go under one unified, intelligent direction. It could have been him – if he were a batshit crazy little fuck like Loki, which was, really, the most pertinent point here, but maybe in this world, Loki wasn't either.

Or maybe it was just not yet. This world might be divergent from his own, but so far it was following pretty close to the myths of Tony's, and there was always Baldur's death to consider, not to mention freaking Ragnarok.

Could he judge a man (teenager – he wanted say kid, but, no, they were at least on the upper end of the teenage scale, if such a scale even applied to millennia-long-lived aliens) who was going to maybe commit a crime? Of course not, that was insane – but the thought was there, that this wasn't the ordinary, everyday potential of people to be scum. This was a bastard who would world domination. At the last report from JARVIS, he'd been beaten into a crater by the Hulk, but how close had it been, if Loki had been a bit smarter, used another one of his illusions to get away... There were still thousands of Chitauri back on the ground in Manhattan. Who knew how many people they'd kill before they were finally put down, or how many they'd killed already.

And in another world, Tony had killed Steve Rogers. Of course he couldn't judge this Loki. Not that he was in much of a position to do anything even if he wanted to try.

" – Loki," Steve finished, and Tony's thoughts slowed back to normal speed, his focus unwinding.

"Different world, different Loki, Steve," he sighed.

"Quite," murmured Loki, with just a hint of a sneer. He sashayed closer to Thor, looking a great deal like Pepper when she was deciding on a new pair of heels, and made a strange motion with his hands. Thor's headdress shimmered; when it settled, it looked considerably stiffer and more metallic. "I know not what grudge you may have with whatever version of me exists in the world you hail from, but I do not think I have done anything to earn your enmity."

Slowly, Steve relaxed out of combat stance, but he muttered to Tony, "Keep your guard up."

"Thank you, brother," Thor was saying, his voice a bit muffled as he began quite competently arranging the stiffened fabric to obscure his face. "If you might conjure dresses for the mortals as well, I am sure that they would be of aid to us in this endeavour. Are they not said to be mighty companions?"

"Indeed," said Loki, sounding bored, except all of a sudden there was a dress in his hands and he was advancing upon Steve, who was visibly tensing up again. "Cease your hostility, Captain," he commanded, "I have done naught to you but facilitate your removal from Helheim, at my daughter's request." Wait, what? Tony hoped like hell that there was definitely time-fuckery going on there, because while he doubtfully conceded that Loki might be over a reasonable age of consent, how the hell would Hel have had enough time to grow up? Although, admittedly, she could possibly be a couple of centuries old and Loki might merely be a few centuries older. Goddamned aliens.

"She does not approve of the living wandering her realm," Loki held up the dress, looking at Steve critically. The gown was more similar to Loki's than it was to Thor's, lacking both arms and a headdress, but there was no way that Squarejaw Steve over there was going to be able to pull it off without something to obscure his chin.

Grudgingly, and a little helplessly, Steve took the dress, while Loki frowned at him, seemingly in deep concentration. A moment later, Loki snapped his fingers, and Steve dropped the dress and squawked, "What the hell?"

Tony also squawked, less because shit Captain America swore and far more because holy shit sudden boobs, completely uncovered boobs, and the flag was in dire danger of falling off and uncovering the rest of Steve because although Steve made an extremely large and fit woman, he was still slightly smaller than he was as a man.

"No," Tony said firmly, because there was no fucking way he was shaving his goatee or getting it alien-Nair'd-off or what-the-hell-ever, if Thor could wear a veil so could they. "We'll use veils – they don't have to be brides' veils, just say they're traditional, turn him back right now." A moment later he realized his mistake in talking about this like it was actually happening, because this was such a bad idea for so many reasons, perhaps the least of which was that Tony hadn't cross-dressed since college and had no desire to ever do so again.

Loki shrugged and snapped his fingers again; a moment later, Steve was boob-less, and feeling awkwardly at his crotch. He stopped after a second when they all three stared at him. Tony was willing to bet that if it had been Rogers, twenty-five year old kid that he was, he'd have been crimson, but evidently Steve, older and wiser, had learned to control that reaction – although his ears did go very pink.

"Just put on the dress, Captain," Loki sighed, conjuring a veil and handing it to Steve, who took it and picked up the dress with a muttered, "Jesus." He didn't make any move to unwrap his flag.

After another, longer moment of being stared at, Steve cleared his throat and said pointedly, "A little privacy?" Then he shook his head. "Wait, no – why am I – why are we all cross-dressing?"

"We are to pose as the Lady Freyja and her handmaidens," Thor explained earnestly. "The giant Þrymr snuck into the halls of Asgard not three days ago and stole the hammer Mjolnir; then, as further insult," Thor scowled, "the craven cur demanded the hand of Freyja in marriage, as payment for the hammer."

"But you're the only one who can pick up Mjolnir," Steve protested, sounding confused.

Thor's face brightened. "This is so? Then we are successful, in your world," he said happily, clapping Steve upon the shoulder.

"We shall not, of course, allow Þrymr to gain the one or keep the other; and thus our ruse, to put the giant off his guard long enough to regain the weapon," Loki put in, twirling his hands again and producing yet another dress. This one – well, Tony could appreciate the colours, the gold and rubies scheme going on there nicely complimented his armour, but there was the problem of having to take his armour off, first, when surrounded by people who could quite easily crush him without thinking, and who were mostly drunk and bound to get drunker. This was a really bad idea.

"Yeah, hold on a second," Tony said, raising one hand to ward off any sudden attack of fabric and gemstones. "I'm not sure I'd be – "

Pain.

Tony cut himself off with a choked gasp, his shoulders hunching in as he struggled to breathe through it. The sharp jab of agony faded, leaving behind a persistent tugging ache. "Shit. You don't have your hammer? No, of course not, you just said," he spoke over top of any explanation the Asgardians might offer, "But you have to have another power source around here somewhere, this is the – the bridge room, or whatever, but there has to be – " As he spoke he hit the release switches on his armour, and it began to disassemble, leaving him feeling more naked than not. Removing the armour was still a terrible idea, but now he had no choice; he might need access to the arc reactor for this, because – " – no way that it's a similar system, I need to figure out a hook-up, now – "

He found himself looking at Loki, even if he was currently a teenage girl, because in every Norse myth ever, well, one got the feeling that the main reason the gods kept Loki around was that he was the only one of them that could count past ten without taking his boots off – well, except for Odin. Loki wasn't looking back, though; his mouth was moving, and he might have been speaking, but Tony couldn't hear, suddenly, as the world greyed out around him. This was bad. This was very bad. If he could feel it, like this, then the shrapnel was moving, and if it was moving then it was ripping him up inside –

Steve's face was in front of him, then, suddenly. Steve's face, and Thor's, and Loki's, and the last one in particular was weird because Loki was upside down. Anti-gravity? Flight? But the other two were also at odd angles – floor, Tony realized, as he struggled to breathe. He was on the floor and it was making everything worse, his shoulders falling too far back – and then inside his chest there was pressure, pressure, oh god, like somebody had reached in and was squeezing his heart with their fist –

Someone's hands were laid against his face. In the background, dimly, he could hear someone saying, "Look at me – look at me, Tony," but he had no idea who it was. It didn't matter anyway. Even as his body kept fighting for breath, he knew his time was up. It had been up as soon as he'd latched onto the nuke. Maybe this had all just been a bizarre dying dream. Those happened, right? He was sure... he'd heard... of...

---

Someone was patting his cheek. Tony let his head loll to the side. "Mmwa?" he managed to get out. Everything hurt; his chest ached abominably, like goddamned Obidiah had risen from the dead, put on his rip-off suit (so unrefined, so unstreamlined, so over the top and so much weaker for it) and stomped on his chest a few times. With him not in his own suit.

Which, from the feel of it, was definitely the situation right now. The surface he was lying on was cold and hard, and heat was leeching away through his shirt with every passing moment. What had...?

Tony cracked his eyes open, and Rogers' – Steve's – face swam into view. He blinked, and the image cleared up. "Oh thank God," Steve said fervently.

- right, that was what had happened, Tony realized, his brain starting to kick back in. He struggled to raise his head; the initial effort made his thoughts go all swimmy again, but then everything began to get easier, like his body had remembered how it was supposed to work and decided to cooperate. With clumsy hands, he pawed at his chest, even though he could clearly see the arc reactor lit up again, shining through his shirt. But how? There weren't any plugs or cabling nearby, and repowering the arc reactor wouldn't do a damn thing to repair the damage already done by the shrapnel moving – how long had he been out?

"You are well again?" Thor's booming voice interrupted his thoughts. There was genuine concern there, though, and that was a bit touching. From Thor's perspective, they'd just met – had they? Tony needed to grill somebody about the rules of this place.

"Yeah, I'm good," he said, managing to sit up with only minimal support from Steve. Steve left his hand on Tony's shoulder, though, like he was worried Tony was going to tip over sideways if he didn't. Just to prove him wrong, Tony clambered to his feet on his own, although it was somewhat ruined by needing to lean against a metal-embossed wall (if he hadn't known he was in Asgard before, he would now, because nobody pimped out with metal like Asgardians) to catch his breath. "I'm fine – Jesus, Steve, I'm fine, stop hovering," he insisted, and then he focused his gaze on Loki and Thor. "Why the hell am I fine, how did you fix me?"

"I may lack the power of Mjolnir as of yet, but the name of the Thunderer is writ in my blood; I thus command some portion of the full power that shall be mine one day," Thor proclaimed. "And my brother, talented magician that he is," Loki looked mildly pleased by this praise, "was well-able to repair any brief damage done. But come, my friends! If you are well, then I would not leave Mjolnir in Þrymr's unworthy hands for another moment more."

"You need not fear further failure of your heart," Loki said, and damned if he didn't manage to actually sound reassuring about it. "I have vanished the remaining shards."

Tony felt his mouth work. He'd just – vanished them. Just like that. He'd fixed the timebomb that Afghanistan had left, when the best cardiothoracic surgeons in the world had all assured Tony that given the locations of the remaining pieces of shrapnel, if he wanted to be rid of them it would be less life-threatening to just get a heart transplant. And not that he hadn't considered it, but his immune system was already fucked from having the arc reactor, and sure he could be boosted to the top of any waitlist, but – no, he couldn't. He couldn't take a perfectly good heart from somebody else who might need it. There were designs for a mechanical heart sitting on his private servers, one that would actually work far more efficiently than the one currently stuck in his chest, but even that he'd never gotten around to doing anything about, because, well. The operation would leave him in recovery for how damn long? In Afghanistan he hadn't had an option, but if he hadn't been hit, if he'd not been wounded the way he was, he'd have managed his escape long before everybody gave up looking for him. Instead he'd gotten back to find that oh, by the way, it's been three fucking months and everyone thought you were dead. These days he had too much to do; every waking breath counted, it was hard enough convincing himself to take time off to sleep, some days – there was no way he could afford the recovery time. But now... if Loki was telling the truth... now all of those considerations were gone. He still had the arc reactor, but...

"Why'd you leave the reactor?" he asked Loki, one hand coming up almost unconsciously to cover up the light in his chest.

Loki tilted his head. "A few shards of metal are easy to make disappear, but the amount of flesh that I should have to re-grow to replace that device within your chest would require you to spend many weeks laid up in the healing halls. It is quite cleverly placed; I thought it would do no harm to let it remain." He sounded uncertain, on the last part, and Tony couldn't tell if that was true or just more affectation. Trickster Gods – damn them all.

"No, it's fine," Tony said quickly. It was useless, now – at least in the everyday sense; god knew that he had found and would no doubt continue to find all sorts of uses for the power generated by a small, clean nuclear reactor – but he found, strangely, that he... didn't want it gone. "It's... it's fine." Breathing, all of a sudden, seemed remarkably easy, like somebody had run previously smoggy air through a scrubber.

"Then let us make our final preparations, and be off!" Thor boomed. He looked pointedly at the dresses that had been discarded on the floor.

And, well – Tony was already out of the armour, and it was in pieces, the sort that meant that it was not going to get reassembled without a whole lot of effort or its internal power supply restarting, so – he cracked up, he couldn't take it anymore, the half-incredulous, half-reluctant look on Steve's face was just too much when he sighed, "Let's do this, then," and picked up the dress.

Barely managing to prevent himself from cackling, Tony pushed off from the wall, spread his arms wide, and drawled at Loki, "Doll me up, baby."

---

Five minutes later, refreshed by about a litre of conjured water (Tony had forgotten how thirsty he'd been until he was offered a drink – funny how almost-dying did that – but the offer brought back the thirst quick enough) Tony was once more trying to restrain himself from puking – seriously, they needed a fucking capsule, that was ridiculous – and having a rather intense flashback to his second doctoral defense, and in particular the afterparty – or rather, the aftermath of the afterparty, since he didn't remember the event itself. To this day he had no idea what had happened – luckily, nobody else did, either, as far as he kew – but he'd woken up dressed in a breathtakingly tight corset, with his legs shaved and his junk secured in some extremely uncomfortable ways. At least this time Tony was pretty sure that bolt-cutters would not be required to shimmy out of this getup. The conjured dress was even surprisingly comfortable, despite the rubies looking like they should be grinding into his skin with every incautious movement.

Loki had also done something to fix the cut on his face, with the side-effect that he was feeling more wrinkle-free than he had in years. At some point, Tony was seriously going to have to sit down and talk equations with him, unless he could find some other 'magician' (the word grated, but if that was actually what Asgard called its science...). Might-become-an-insane-supervillain or no, if Loki did turn out to be the best option into understanding Asgardian science/magic/truth, Tony would sit and learn at his feet. (Until he worked out enough that he could advance on his own, of course, which would probably take all of five minutes – approximately the same amount of time he figured his pride would let him tolerate such a demeaning position without rolling out the wisecracks. Loki was an arrogant prick in any world, and really, it did not take one to know one in this case.)

Which didn't mean his repulsors wouldn't be close at hand, whether learning from Loki or exploring some strange new world. While Steve had been struggling considerably harder with his dress (he had the waist of a sixteen year old girl, but the shoulders were more difficult to conceal), Tony had stripped the left gauntlet's repulsor, along with enough wiring to hook it up to his own arc reactor. The wires were easy enough to hide under the bodice of the dress, and the lens itself merely resembled a large, pretty (if cheap – ironic, because it really wasn't) jewel that he hung off of his belt.

The nausea of the second trip-by-bifrost faded, giving him the chance to look around. "Well, this place... sucks," he commented, borrowing phrasing from Bruce because he was a shameless thief.

Jǫtunheimr looked like the ass-end of nowhere – it was marginally less boring than Helheim, which was sort of like saying that it wasn't quite as cold as absolute zero. Although it was pretty cold; their breath misted in the air whenever they breathed out, and the skin on the upper half of his face was quickly going numb, although everywhere covered by the enchanted clothes was perfectly toasty. (Magic, honestly. Seriously, he had to learn and patent this shit, he could make another fortune off of it. Plus, wouldn't Pepper find it nice? She got cold legs, wearing a skirt in New York in wintertime.)

Loki looked over at him and Steve critically, and then made one of his mysterious gestures; Tony felt his forehead begin to defrost, even as he catalogued the gesture and compared it to the others he'd seen Loki make while conjuring things. "I advise you not to speak thusly in the presence of our host," he said dryly, indicating with a nod where a group of beings were striding towards them. "In fact, you ought hold your tongues entirely – neither of you know the Allspeak, and such a discrepancy will mark you as foreign to Asgard."

"Right," Tony had time to mumble, and then their hosts were too near for more chatter, their enormous strides having eaten up the distance in a frankly mindbogglingly short time. Tony had seen the Hulk leaping about, but if they were nowhere near him in girth, some of the jǫtnar could have topped him for height – and they seemed to have similar feelings about clothes, or the lack of necessity thereof. If they hadn't been blue and so obviously alien, Tony might have felt cold looking at them. Instead he found himself studying their tattoos. Were they just cultural, or did they have some deeper meaning? There had been runes in the bridge room...

How many new alien species had Tony met today, and they were all – well, almost all; the dragon sure wasn't, and neither were its lesser cousins the flying metal slugs – almost all bipedal, capable of producing sound that registered in the human hearing range. This was his third alien world, and the light here was almost the same as that back on earth; he'd be willing to bet his life that it put out nearly the same spectrum, and that this world had a similarly protective magnetic field to Earth's (he was betting his life, unless the dress was proofed against charged particles). Was there life out there on other, non-Earth-similar worlds, and the Asgardians and the rest of the space-faring Nine Realms just ignored it? It seemed unlikely. The Kepler search might be digging up new exo-planets all the time, but even if they'd found planets in the goldilocks zone, planets in the goldilocks zone with atmosphere, radiation presence, gravity, magnetic field, etcetera that were within human tolerances... one of those had yet to be discovered.

And besides – Yggdrasil had been significantly off the map of things he'd expected to see in space. Four realms with similar species... no, given that extradimensional realities were already in the equation, it seemed more likely that the Nine Realms weren't separated in space at all, just as the Foster Theory speculated. A subset of close realities, on the other hand... but then what had happened to all the other possibilities? There should have been more than just nine.

The largest giant stopped in front of them, leaving behind a trail of small cracks in the ice, rather than simple footprints. He easily topped four metres – more than tall enough that Tony quickly got a crick in his neck craning his head back to look, and so stopped. Loki stepped forward and curtseyed gracefully; the rest of them stayed put, probably more out of a sense of manliness than anything else. Steve had the grace of a ballerina, and Thor was similarly light on his feet. And if Tony knew how to curtsey, well, that was none of their business.

"Most noble and mighty Þrymr," Loki said, and wow, he really wasn't wasting any time in laying it on with a shovel – Tony had to admire the way his voice went all breathless, seeming to insinuate to all and sundry that he was about to swoon from awe of the listener's muscles, "I am the handmaiden Amora, servant of the most benevolent and gracious Lady Freyja. It is my deep honour to make introduction to you in this glad hour, and convey her blushing and wholehearted acceptance of your suit. You may pray excuse if our party is small, for, upon hearing that the great Þrymr wished to claim her hand in marriage, my Lady would do nothing less than at once make the hastiest preparations, that she might gaze upon her suitor and join him in happy matrimony all the sooner." He curtseyed again at the end of this speech, so deeply he might have been kneeling, and indicated Thor without unbowing his head.

Thor, for his part, stood in silence – apparently he was no more comfortable with being shapechanged than Steve had been, for he hadn't even allowed Loki to alter his voice – and then nodded once, regally. It was a very mannish nod; Tony winced behind his veil.

"The bards' best descriptions of your bountiful figure pale besides the magnificence of your true self," Þrymr boomed in a voice like a glacier cracking rock, and wow, was he seriously checking out Thor's padding? Tony stared, nonplussed, as the giant went to his knees – which put his head at roughly equal height as Thor – and then awkwardly grabbed Thor's hand, and kissed it. Thor pulled it back very quickly.

"That is Hammer-level fail, right there," Tony muttered, and then had to conceal an 'Ow!' as Steve elbowed him in the ribs. He glanced over; Steve's baby blues were glaring at him over top of the (red-white-and-blue – never let it be said that Loki didn't have a sense of humour) veil. Right, no talking.

"Let us depart, and make haste at once for the feasthall; there we shall all make merry, and I shall make the Lady Freyja a maid no longer," Þrymr declared with a leer, leaping back up to his feet. Tony stumbled as the ice crackled ominously – and then yelped, as one of the other giants surged forward and plucked him from the ground. If it was a yelp high-pitched enough to be from a woman, then he figured that he couldn't be blamed; he was thrown over the giant's shoulder and the entire troop set off, running at a pace that – well, Steve might have been able to keep up, super-soldier that he was, but Jesus Christ the giant had totally just copped a feel on him, and that was not on. He wanted to grab for the repulsor, but that was squashed up against the brute's neck; instead, Tony pounded at the giant's broad tattooed back with his fist until the enormous hand shifted to someplace less sexual-harassment-lawsuit worthy, although who was he kidding, any court would throw this out, this was ridiculous.

Their gait was jarring enough that Tony was sure he was going to have a stiff neck after this – he was too old for this whiplash bullshit, especially when only a day ago he'd nearly been mushed by the Helicarrier's engines; even the most top-of-the-line inertial dampening could only do so much against that type of acceleration. He looked over and saw that at least he wasn't alone in this indignity. Thor's expression was impossible to read beneath all his myriad veils, but Loki was gesturing frantically at Tony, his other hand pointing at his chin –

- oh, right, the veil. It hadn't held up so well to being turned upside down; Tony hastily clamped a hand down on it to hold it over his beard. On his other side, Steve was resignedly doing the same thing to hide his massively square jaw, and Tony did not want to know what sort of shit went down in his universe that he was so blasé with all of this.

Their mode of transport did have one major advantage, in that it quickly got them where they were going. Barely a few minutes had passed before Tony found himself unceremoniously dumped back on his feet; luckily, Steve grabbed him and held him upright long enough for his head to stop swimming. They had arrived at an enormous wooden – fort? Barn? Tony didn't know; who built things out of wood, anyway? – which was surrounded by a few pitiful strands of trees, the first vegetation that Tony had seen on any of these alien worlds – he'd begun to wonder about the oxygen supply.

"Look upon my hall, my Lady, for is it not magnificent?" Þrymr boasted as he led the way inside. "Bestir ye, giants, put straw on the benches! Now Freyja I bring, to be my bride, the daughter of Njorth, out of Noatun!"

Barn, definitely, Tony decided as soon as he crossed the threshold and the smell of animals – oh, god, are they eating in the middle of this muck – hit his nose. Sure, he hadn't eaten for a good day at least, but any appetite he might have been working on was dead on the floor. Steve went into a coughing fit, but waved him off when Tony held up his hands, hovering them in worried a, are you okay? gesture. Well, super-soldier senses – Tony didn't envy him, there was a pile of animal shit on the floor, what the hell, he'd nearly stepped in it! Jǫtnar everywhere were scurrying about, strewing about straw, which really only served to make the place more dangerous; it made the dungpiles more difficult to spot, and did absolutely nothing at all for the stench.

Þrymr had pulled Thor along to the high table, where there were two chairs; Loki glided along beside them in perfect grace, and took up a position at Thor's right hand, then indicated with a jerk of his head that Tony and Steve should position themselves further back, nearer to the wall. Tony had no problems with this arrangement – other than the major problem of being in here in the first place – because it was less likely to get him stepped on by some careless giant, but, "Why are we even here?" he moaned to Steve. None of the giants seemed to hear, but then, they all seemed to speak at a bellow. Tony could barely hear himself above all the din, not to mention the lowing of – cattle? Why were there cattle? Though that did explain the shit.

"Golden-horned cattle from my stables," Þrymr said proudly, and if Tony squinted past the haze caused by the use of torches – torches, Jesus, so much for advanced aliens – then he could see that their horns were, indeed, painted gold and encrusted with gems. The first cattle were led past the high table, followed by a long string of even larger beasts, which snorted and pawed at the floor; each one required a giant handler. "Jet-black oxen; the finest heads in all of Jǫtunheimr, and indeed in all the realms. They are my pride and joy, their weath a sign of my greatness," Þrymr declared, and then proceeded to extol the virtues of every single one. Tony was even happier to be back against the wall, rather than closer to the action, when he saw one of the cattle take a shit right there. But then a shame-faced giant quickly swept away the mess with a broom – completely failing to get rid of it, or of the smell, or do anything other than shove it up against another wall. Tony closed his eyes and tried very hard to not think about what he was standing on. He was wearing a fucking magic dress, if it could protect him from cold, it would protect him from parasites, it would protect him from parasites –

As the cattle were finally, finally led away, more giants marched in, in groups of four, each group with a litter resting on their shoulders, and an enormous heap of gold and jewels piled up upon that. Tony felt himself boggle at the sight. What the hell were those litters made out of, that they could take the weight of that much gold? The same type of thing as held the Gjallerbrú up? That seemed more likely to be a forcefield, but if the giants had access to forcefields, surely they'd not be using fucking torches in a barn. The litters were paper-thin – the possible applications of such a material –

"Many my gems, and many my jewels!" Þrymr proclaimed, to cheering from his giants. "Freyja alone did I lack, methinks. And now that she has come to be my bride, I am surely the wealthiest of all jǫtnar. Now let us feast, then make whole this union!"

Tony clapped his hands over his ears as the hall was filled with the din of a hundred frost giants cheering. Beside him, Steve was doing the same, managing to show off his biceps to great, if currently unwanted, effect. The great doors opened again and huge platters of food were marched in, borne by the same giants who had been leading around oxen and sweeping away shit only a minute ago. He spotted an enormous roasted salmon, at least two metres long, garnished with some sort of vegetable; the smell of it combined with the still-strong stench of manure (and seriously, shouldn't his nose have adapted by now and started ignoring it?) to make him gag.

His attempts to do so unnoticeably led him to miss whatever it was that Steve caught, but all of a sudden the other man stepped forward, up to Thor's elbow – oh, Loki had been gesturing. Steve didn't make much of a serving girl. His attempts to cut slices of salmon for Thor's were all fingers and thumbs, and he was standing much too close –

The knife Steve had been holding clattered to the floor. Steve was gone.

"Sorcery!" roared Þrymr.

Every giant was on their feet. Weapons sprouted from their hands like – well, like magic, because those weapons were made of ice, Tony realized, as several came uncomfortably close. One speartip poked against his side, painfully, and out of the corner of his eye Tony saw more red stain the golden cloth than the rubies could account for. He went very still – one measly repulsor wasn't going to do him much good when he'd be gutted long before he'd even be able to aim it.

Shit. There was a hall full of hostile aliens glaring at him, and he had no armour.

One of those aliens was Loki; his glare held much more What the hell was that? than How darest thou! But more importantly he wasn't offering an explanation, and Tony found himself glaring back, because Hello, Loki Silvertongue?

He swallowed, hard – hoping that the veil hid the bobbing of his Adam's apple fully – and tried to pitch his voice for a falsetto, which, shit, was another thing hadn't done since his MIT days. "Pray excuse," he attempted to say, and nearly broke into a coughing fit, holding back only with the epic fortitude that went along with being a superhero, "my sister's disappearance." His voice was rapidly going squeakier than a falsetto, but right now squeaking was easier on his vocal chords. "T'is no magick of her own, but rather a curse laid upon her," and he had clearly been surrounded by these nuts for too long, 'cause that phrasing had rolled off his tongue without a moment's thought on his part.

He glared back at Loki. There you go – now start living up to your name!

The hostility from the giants had not lessened. "Your servingmaid speaks a strange tongue," Þrymr rumbled.

"She was not born in Asgard," Loki cut in smoothly, thank fucking god – literally. "She and her fair sister are of poor Midgard," and Tony resisted the urge to glare at him, because Earth wasn't that bad off, thanks, "and betrothed untimely to two brothers, who fell in battle with the witch that cursed the elder thus: that, for the crime of her beauty, whenever another contemplated her most seemly visage, she would disappear, for such a time as until the admirer's thoughts turned elsewhere. T'was the younger's thought to don a veil, and she did so in solidarity with her sister, but alas! The veil must have slipped. I pray you, whomever saw her face, to cease such thoughts, 'lest she mournfully wander the void evermore! For until such time as the witch is dead, the curse continues, and there are not many men who would consent to fight such a foul creature for the hand of a woman who will not let her face be seen uncovered. So moved by their sad plight was my Lady Freyja that she agreed to be patron to the pair until such time as they might be wed to suitors of greater skill at arms."

Oh, hell no. Tony's eyes widened, but Loki's pinky finger made a sudden, sharp twitch, and Tony gagged on air, not managing to get a single word of protest out before Þrymr declared jovially, "Then the Lady Freyja may rejoice further, for the warriors of my clan are surpassed by none in their skill at arms, and the bravery of Þrymr's clan is known far and wide! After our wedding, I shall host a contest, that the mightiest of my giants may vie for their hands. The strongest champions shall go forth to slay the witch and, upon returning, have the honour of wedding the beauteous Freyja's beloved servants."

Tony hadn't ever considered himself much of a xenophobe – but then, he'd never really thought much about how to treat actual fucking aliens. And as much as he loved sex, as much as he liked to admire people, the giants? Really not doing it for him. It was more their proportions, rather than the blue skin – well, the proportions, and the uncleanliness, and the smell – as well as the size. Because if they thought he was a woman, then – no, no, that was a terrible idea. He glared daggers at Loki as the weapons that had been pointed at him withdrew, but three of the largest giants around him did not – and then he jumped. The guy on his left had just copped a feel! Was he the same guy who had been carrying him earlier? Why yes, Tony had a fantastic ass, but that didn't mean it was up for grabs, figuratively or literally!

But Loki paid him no attention – he had other issues to deal with, such as explaining how 'Lady Freyja' had managed to polish off a full roast ox in no time at all (which was impressive, since Tony was sure he'd seen Thor down a few platters of salmon, too). Tony didn't catch much of the lengthy, rambling, fairy-tale-esque explanation, most of his attention firmly on the three giants who'd stuck around to 'court' him (oh, god). He backed up a bit, wincing when something squished under his shoe, but needing the wall to be very firmly behind him.

The one who'd groped him placed a hand over his heart, and declared in a deep bass rumble, "I am Dumbr – " Tony stared in disbelief; seriously? Was that just a really shitty translation? He wished he knew more about the Allspeak. It wasn't just a language, obviously, but – really, Dumbr? " – and this is my brother, Dofri. Together no amount of Aesir or Jǫtnar can stand against us, as we proved in battle not three nights ago, when Laufey sent three armies against our liege lord. Dofri and myself stood against an entire army, we two alone, and felled them by the score; when the final tally of the bodies was made, we had slain three thousand."

Dofri broke in, his chest puffed out enough that it almost seemed normal for his height – although this meant that Tony, craning his neck upward, couldn't actually see the giant's head – and continued with the boasting. "Nor can any witch hope to lay us low. When Þrymr strove to slay the witch of the Gallows-wood, and take this hall as his own, t'was we who scouted out her lair, with craft and cunning, and divined her weaknesses. Accept our suit, and we shall free your sister from this unkind enchantment, that all may look upon her and admire her beauty once again."

"Uh," said Tony weakly, when the pair of brothers both paused to look at him expectantly. Then he had to cover his mouth and pretend it was a burp, because it had come out a few registers lower than any woman's voice should have been able to reach. He tried again, and managed to only be a bit squeaky this time. "That's... impressive?"

"Hardly, at all!" declared the third giant, who apparently had been waiting for Tony to render judgement. "For while these two buffoons might barely manage to protect each other's flanks, I, Vardrun, hewed through two armies, alone with my mighty sword, suffering none of the enemy to live! And when that fight was done, I advanced to the Sea of Ice, and there downed ten ships of Laufey's fleet by fire and axe, that they might not bring reinforcements to the battle! If your sister's curse is to be lifted, then I am surely the warrior to do it; but I will seek only your hand, fair maiden, for as any with wisdom know, the darker-haired ladies are by far the loveliest." He looked at Tony expectantly, though Tony had absolutely no idea what for. This lack of action upon Tony's part didn't seem to deter Vardrun, however, who after a moment seized her hand and kissed the back of it – and ew, had that been a bit of tongue? Way to destroy any sense of class, evenhe didn't do that – well, not to strangers, anyway, and not at all, these days, Pepper thought it was gross.

"I – see," Tony said, his voice almost cracking. He coughed several times and attempted to peer around the giants, trying to catch Loki's eye and see if the Allspeech could translate the signal forhurry the fuck up.

But Loki had problems of his own. Þrymr was leaning forward as if he wanted to remove Thor's veil, only to jerk back all of a sudden, and every person in the hall heard him when he boomed out, "Why so fearful, the eyes of Freyja? Fire, methinks, from her eyes burns forth."

The three giants – they needed to take some lessons from Loki; Tony was beginning to think that when he'd said 'champions', Þrymr had meant champion idiots, because their lies sucked – were at least distracted from ogling him. The dress had definitely been a mistake; Tony should have stayed in Asgard to play with his armour. And kept Steve with him. Of course, then they would have been abandoned with no supplies in another alien realm, and have pissed off the only people they knew, but –

"No sleep has Freyja for eight nights found, so hot was her longing for Jǫtunheimr," Loki declared, and Tony changed his mind; the three stooges shouldn't take lessons from Loki, because Loki was seriously dropping the ball here, first with Steve's disappearance and now this – could his voice get any less convincing? Was this because he was young, or something? Were teenage Asgardians unable to tell lies? Because Tony had been a champion liar as a teenager, ask anybody. Loki got points for audacity, given the way Thor was glaring at Þrymr – even with Thor's eyes hidden, Tony could see it – but his presentation needed work.

Evidently sensing the awkwardness, a giantess hustled up – and, oh, hey, they did have women, that was nice to know, they didn't just reproduce by kidnapping wives from other worlds – to stand to one side of the not-so-happy couple. It was easy to tell that she was a woman, because apparently the female jǫtnar didn't feel the need to cover up much either, but any beauty that her breasts lent her – and they did look quite finely shaped – was erased by the ugly smirk that she wore.

The smirk was erased a moment later when Steve, with what Tony was beginning to suspect was deliberately awkward timing, reappeared a metre away from where he'd disappeared. The dress that he had been wearing very definitely did not reappear with him – instead, he had that stupid blue flag wrapped around him again, trapping his arms and legs.

The giantess whipped out a knife, her teeth bared in a shriek; Steve, who had appeared with non-zero momentum, fell forward and caught himself on her thigh, very nearly avoiding a face-plant into her groin. She shoved him away and he automatically began to curl up into a roll, but there was something off about his movements – Tony could see that he was moving too slow, as if dizzy, and well shit, he had just jumped realities, hadn't he? The edge of one bench caught Steve's head with a sickening crack, and he fell to the floor, groaning faintly.

"No!" Tony didn't even realize that it had been him who had shouted until he suddenly had spears pointed at him again – shit, that hadn't sounded like a woman at all – but Vardrun, Dofri and Dumbr apparently saw fit to come to his rescue; none of the weapons touched his skin. Unfortunately, Vardrun also saw fit to restrain him, shoving him back against the wall with an admonishment that Tony barely heard. Steve had stopped moving.

"That is an Aesir, and no man of Midgard!" Þrymr roared. His left arm had gained a good metre of ice, which ended in a pick. "There are none upon that lesser world of such tall stature or broad girth! Lady Freyja, Maid Amora, I have been kind, but this trickery demands explanation!"

"I have no explanation, for I have ne'er seen this man before," Loki said, also on his feet with his hands spread wide. Which was good, Tony realized, as he squirmed in Vardrun's grip, because that gave him all the more room to wiggle his fingers and conjure whatever he wanted. "Perhaps he is some unwanted suitor, looking to claim my lady's hand for his own, but no matter his purpose, he is of no concern of ours. Pray, do with him as you will, although I should not think punishment amiss; he has disrupted my lady's wedding feast quite rudely."

Jesus Christ – okay, so the flag was covering Steve a bit, but how had Loki not recognized – Tony abruptly cut off that train of thought and had to stop staring at Steve in moment to give Loki a (very brief) look of admiration. Maybe Loki had just been lazy, before, because the utter sincerity with which he spoke the words was – well, it was a work of art. Unfortunately that didn't solve the primary problem, which was that Loki had just thrown Steve under the bus. Thor stirred – apparently he wasn't happy with this outcome, either, go Thor, that's why he was Tony's favourite of the two, aside from the whole psychotic mass murderer bit – but Loki put a hand on one of his broad shoulders, and Thor subsided. Shit.

"Take him away," Þrymr ordered two nearby giants, slowly sinking back into his own chair with a glower. "Wring from him his purpose, here, and quickly, that I might use his blood as an offering afore my wedding night."

Not good! Tony thought, panicked, trying to project the sentiment at Loki without making it clear to all of the giants still clustered around him. One of the giants that Þrymr had spoken to attempted to pick Steve up by the flag, but the flag, of course, wasn't attached to Steve; it just twisted around and Steve rolled out of it. The other giant grunted, in what sounded like amusement, and picked Steve up by the arm. He dangled limply from the giant's grip, like some oversized rag doll, and the two made their way out of the room with a jaunty spring to their step.

Loki finally turned and glanced in Tony's direction, but Tony couldn't keep making faces at him, because with the intruder gone, his three suitors were back to looking at him with their full attention. Tony widened his eyes, attempting to convey his urgency, and Dofri evidently took this to mean he needed reassurance, "Have no fear, gentle mortal; for though Asgardians may be true brutes, he shall not last long before the attentions of Gyllir and Gusnir! Though no doubt my brother and I could break him more swiftly; no creature so low could long withstand the presence of two so mighty as we."

Which, right, not so reassuring. Tony felt his eyes widening even more, this time not wholly voluntarily. Loki caught his gaze for just a moment and jerked his head minutely in the direction that Steve had been carried off, before turning back to serving Thor (who was working on his – was that a seventh slab of salmon? At this point Thor had to have actually eaten nearly his own mass in meat; clearly Asgardian digestive systems worked very differently, and there had to be something about mass shifting in there – something to look into, then, if he got stalled using the Hulk research as a basis). But, right, he had to get his head in the game, because he had one stripped-down repulsor and no arm brace to use it with, which meant it was going to be half-power all the way.

But this – this was bullshitting his way into someplace he shouldn't be, and that was not a job for Iron Man. That was a job for Tony Stark. He let himself grin beneath the veil, where the three stooges wouldn't see it, careful to keep all trace of it away from his eyes. Not that they would have seen amusement in it, because Steve had just gotten dragged off to an alien inquisition. But a challenge – hell yes.

"I have never seen a man of Asgard before," he said, voice pitched high, subtly shifting his posture. In his mind's eye was Pepper, looking coy – weight shifted onto one foot, cocking the hips; he drew one hand up to his chest, fingers curled (it was all about the curves), drawing attention to the boobs that Loki had ensured were filled out nicely – without, thankfully, giving him actual boobs, because as much as he liked boobs, he did not want a set of his own. Well, maybe. But not when the guy giving them was a trickster god who might find it funny to leave him stuck like that.

"But you are of Lady Freyja's household," Dumbr protested, right on cue. Tony smirked, and this one he let reach his eyes; closed them, slightly, so that he could look up at Dumbr through his eyelashes. He shifted his posture further, so that when he breathed out, it threw the boobs into prominence again.

"My Lady is exceedingly kind, but to protect my sister, she has kept us cloistered," he murmured, and hey, it was actually easier to pitch the falsetto as not quite so false if he let it go all breathy. "Until she brought us here, where we might find more... valiant suitors... we had not seen a man in a year and a day. But I do confess to some curiosity; might I see him, before his death?"

Vardrun frowned, not liking this – none of the three liked it, Tony saw gleefully. He shifted his weight further, letting his body ease into a wholly unnatural curve. Damn, how did Pepper find this posture comfortable at all? Well, women were more flexible. "Surely, he is off no consequence – the worm is little, and weak, compared to any giant's strength," Vardrun scoffed. "I could crush his head between my two hands."

"For me, it would take just one hand," Dofri growled.

Tony smiled, and let his eyes show it, again. "Oh, I am sure," he said sweetly, putting just a dollop of doubt into his words, just enough to make all three of them focus on him, rather than on out-doing each other. "Forgive me my curiosity – I had merely wanted to see... but no matter. Of course, you are no doubt mightier than him, in all respects."

Go on, take the bait... Dumbr, bless his heart, gobbled it down like Thor was gobbling salmon (nine, now, good god). "Most certainly, but of course you could not know for sure, having never seen one of the maggots before!" he declared, clamping a heavy hand down on Tony's shoulder – but delicately, it seemed, out of deference to a supposed maiden. "Come, gentle maid, and before Gyllir and Gusnir begin their sport, I shall prove to you the vast inferiority of the Aesir."

"Brother, those chambers are not fit for her eyes," Dofri protested, as Dumbr steered Tony to the door – but he went along with them, Vardrun unhappily bringing up the rear with his own protest, "Like as not, those two have already begun." Tony's blood burned colder at that. Shit.

He slipped his left hand through the loop on his belt holding the repulsor core and leaned into Dumbr's hand, smiling up at him. "You are kind, good sir, to indulge me, and a brave man, to be so willing to enter the contest – or else simply most secure! But you know what they say about that." He glanced over his shoulder as they left the hall. Loki winked back at him.

His last comment might have been a bit too Earth-centric for his escorts, who all looked fairly confused, despite feeble attempts to hide it. He thought he saw Dofri about to open his mouth to ask just what it was 'they' said about 'that', but then Dumbr casually elbowed him as they walked along – well, Tony speed-walked, while the giants sort of shuffled – and he shut his mouth with a muted grunt.

Outside of the main hall, the corridors were small enough to be cramped for the giants, with floors, walls and ceilings made mostly of ice and ice-cold rock. It seemed like they had been carved out by rather amateur masons – which made the part of the three stooges' story about taking this place over from somebody else more plausible, at least; the hall, as much as it was a barn, had been built with more skill, while whoever had made this place couldn't even manage to get the steps even. Tony half-jumped down them, pre-empting what he could tell was about to be an attempt by Dumbr to pick him up; the height of the steps ranged from under a decimetre to a full metre. If he had to run up them in a hurry, it might be a problem.

Well, if he had to run back up them in a hurry, hopefully he'd be doing so with Steve, who would, of course, be fine because they were going to get there in time, so Steve could give him a piggy-back ride or something.

The only light was what filtered through the ice: cold, dim, and blue. Good thing he'd never had any difficulties seeing in the dark, then, despite a hatred for carrots while young. He wondered what the range of vision for jǫtnar was: could they see in infrared? X-rays? They couldn't see through the dresses, but the dresses were clearly special.If they were going to end up fighting their way out of this place, it would be good to know – but even if he could find a way to ask without it being suspicious, he didn't think his trio would know what he was talking about. They'd been flirting with him for the past quarter-hour and yet still thought he was actually interested.

They stopped outside a door, which was less of a door and more just of a pane of ice, backlit by a cheery red glow. Vardrun shoved in front of them, and at a gesture from him, the ice receded – that was definitely something to keep in mind, if they had to fight their way out of here. "I shall stop Gyllir and Gusnir before they do much damage," he said, not in time for Tony to miss hearing a pained grunt from beyond – there was no sound of impact against flesh, but shit, they were already starting, "that you may have a fair comparison, and note the true smallness of the Aesir."

"Of course," Tony said, not quite managing to keep his voice from shaking. Luckily, the breathiness mostly hid it. He craned his neck, trying to see past Vardrun's bulk, but even when the giant strode forward all that Tony could make out were two other large shapes, standing in front of whatever was generating that red light. It wasn't flickering enough to be an ordinary fireplace – a forge? Why they'd have a forge when they made their weapons out of ice, he didn't want to know.

Lacking the reinforcement of the gauntlet would make firing the repulsor a careful exercise in not dislocating his wrist. The repulsors might be able to momentum-shift, but they couldn't take care ofall of it. The advantage of surprise would give him one clear shot, for certain, but after that he'd be lucky to get a second – he'd seen how fast the giants could move. But if Steve was groaning, then he was awake – give him a weapon, and he'd be good for at least one giant, and probably be an excellent distraction for the rest. Tony refused to let himself think otherwise, because if Steve hadn't roused from unconsciousness by now...

The first time he'd blown himself up in the lab (age nine, and in retrospect he was a bit surprised it had taken him that long), he'd gotten an earful about safety, and ever since he'd kept up with his first aid training. Since becoming Iron Man, he'd made a point of familiarizing himself with an EMT's level of knowledge. A head injury that knocked somebody out for more than a minute was Seriously Not Good; combine that with Steve's healing ability, and if he was still out by now, then – well, Tony wasn't going to think about it, because obviously Steve had just been stunned for a bit, and he would be fine. Steve was fine, or he would be fine, now that Tony was here. He loved playing cavalry – it was so much better than being the rescuee.

After a few moments of grunting – from the giants; Tony strained his ears, but couldn't hear anything that sounded in Steve's register – the two hulking shapes stood aside, and Vardrun beckoned them in. Tony had to look away to let his eyes readjust; he'd made the mistake of glancing over at the light source, which was, in fact, a forge. The table on which Steve – it had to be Steve – was laid out was right in front of it, which made it hard not to look. Unfortunately, as giant-sized meant that it was about eye-level for Tony, the backlight of the forge meant that he was only able to really see Steve's outline – along with the outline of restraints.

"They don't have to stay, do they?" he indicated the Brothers Grim to Dumbr, letting just a hint of a whine slip through his voice. He'd have preferred sultry, but that was not something that he could pull off in a falsetto. But a whine was enough for Dofri to step forward after a moment – Dumbr apparently being reluctant to let go of his prized position of hanging onto Tony's shoulder – and, with some argument from the Grims, hustle them to the door and out into the hall.

Tony wasn't going to wait for a better opportunity. His left hand was already through the repulsor's loop; he tore it away from the belt, pulling the coiled wiring out until he had enough slack to bring his arm up and aim at Dumbr, who was still holding on to his shoulder. Simultaneously, he slid his foot back to brace his body and brought his right hand up to brace his left wrist. Then he fired.

The recoil slammed his hands back against his chest – if he hadn't been aiming up, he would have smacked himself in the face. It didn't dislocate his wrist, though, which was what he mostly cared about. It hit Dumbr beautifully, right in the chest, strong enough to toss him across the room. The look of betrayed surprise on his face as he died almost made Tony feel sorry for him for a moment, until he remembered how gung-ho he'd been about Steve getting tortured.

Vardrun roared in surprise, which, well, there went any hope of this being a quick or quiet fight; he was moving too fast for Tony to re-aim and re-brace. Instead he ducked his head and darted under the table with his eyes closed, popping back up and turning to face away from the forge before he opened them again – with Steve's left arm right in front of him. The dress, it seemed, protected just as well against heat as it did against cold; he could feel the heat at his back, a carefully stoked furnace that ought to have been almost painfully hot, but it didn't cause him the slightest discomfort. He added it to his list of resources and smacked the cover open, even as he hit the shackle holding Steve's arm to the table with a low-powered repulsor blast. Fire: probably good against ice.

"Thanks," grunted Steve – thank god, thank god, he's conscious and moving – very definitely moving, Tony registered, as Steve half sat up, grabbing a shard of the shackle and nailing Dofri in the eye with it as he came running back into the room. Then Tony had to duck away from Vardrun, who had made it around the table and was reaching for him with one giant hand; he aimed a half-power bolt at the shackle on Steve's ankle as he darted away, playing keep-away with the table in-between them, but that wouldn't last for long, not with the Gruesome Twosome right behind Dofri, who was still clutching at his eye –

Steve lashed out with his two free limbs and caught Vardrun in a lock that would have made Natasha proud. The scant glance that Tony got left him honestly confused as to how Steve managed to bend that way, but it certainly showed off Steve's thigh muscles. Tony ran around the table and braced himself against one of the legs as he fired a full-strength blast at the Grim out in front, sending him crashing backward into his brother; unfortunately, judging by the jarring numbness in his hand, he'd managed to dislocate his wrist this time. His fingers didn't seem to want to move anymore. In front of him, Dofri, with blood streaming down his face, snarled and charged.

"Shit," he mumbled, skittering back around the table legs again, missing the suit fervently. Behind him, there was an agonized grunt, and Tony nearly skidded to a halt, thinking for a moment that it was Steve – but no, it was too alien, one rough tone laid over a deeper base, for that. He risked his vision on a glance and saw that Steve had managed to shove Vardrun head-first at the forge, braining him on the edge of it; Vardrun lay senseless before it, his hair crisping from the heat, with a stripe of burned flesh on his forehead where he'd hit.

He was one more obstacle to navigate as Tony ran closer to the forge, narrowly avoiding Dofri's grasping hand as it swept under the table after him. Steve was a sitting duck – Dofri and the other Grim were focused on Tony in their anger, but as soon as what Steve'd done to Vardrun registered –

He swapped the repulsor to his other hand and darted back under the table, away from the forge and back toward the remaining two giants, presenting them with his already injured side. As hoped, Dofri grabbed at that arm, pulling him forward. The world nearly whited out as his wrist decided that numbness was for dorks, white hot pain was where the cool kids were at, but he didn't need to brace for lower-powered blasts – he just aimed, and with two quick shots, Steve was free. At least Tony hoped he was free – if he'd missed a waist restraint he was going to be so embarrassed, for the five seconds that it would take for the giants to kill him.

Dofri yanked on his arm again, hauling him up into the air, and things went fuzzy – and then the world turned upside down, as the giant threw him to the side. Self-defense lessons kicked in and he rolled clumsily as he hit the floor – or was it the wall? – managing to protect his head, although he was pretty sure he'd dislocated his left shoulder in his process. At this rate he might as well go for the elbow, too, get the whole set... he blinked a few times, hard, to clear his vision – not because his eyes were watering, he was not crying, thank you, and if he was they would be manly tears of manly pain, god fucking damnit ow –

By the time he could see clearly again, even though it had been only a few seconds at most, Steve had the situation well in hand. Dofri was lying unconscious – though still breathing – on the floor, his nose smashed in from what looked to be a supersoldier punch, while Steve danced around the last remaining Grim. As Tony watched, hauling himself up to a sitting position with his right hand, Steve leapt onto the table and ducked under the Grim's attempt to stab him with an icicle. Steve's right foot snapped up (and huh, that was still a nice view) and connected with the giant's temple. The Grim went down like a rock.

"I feel like I should be applauding, here," Tony huffed as he climbed to his feet.

"Are you okay?" Steve jumped off of the table with a cat's grace, running to the door and poking his head out before striding over to look at him in concern. "Your shoulder – "

"Dislocated, yeah," Tony waved it off. "There's nobody else coming? Feast and all, sure, but I'm surprised they didn't hear – OW!" Steve had shuffled over to his side as he'd rambled, he'dthought just to take a look – because Steve seemed like the sort who would, if he could be reincarnated, end up a mother hen looking after a bunch of fluffy chickadees. Instead he'd slammed Tony's shoulder back into place.

"A little warning," he grumbled, to which Steve just rolled his eyes – which, yeah, fair. He rotated his shoulder gingerly, and then held out his wrist. Field reductions were not ideal, and with so many itty bitty bones he'd have preferred an x-ray to go along with it – unlikely, anytime soon – but right now he couldn't feel it at all, and he had no desire to lose his hand.

"This is worse," Steve said after a moment of examining it.

"No shit," Tony said, taking the opportunity to roll his eyes – which, of course, was when Steve yanked, and all of a sudden he could feel his hand again, and it fucking hurt. "Shit," he wheezed, curling into the wall, since Steve still had his hand. "Gimme my damn hand back – " Steve yanked a second time, and he felt something else pop in his wrist. The pain spiked, and then reduced itself to something much more bearable.

"Sorry," Steve said, looking truly apologetic. "Wrists are tricky."

"And important, to some of us," Tony griped, cradling his hand and flexing his fingers. If he lost his hand... well, it wouldn't be that big of a deal once he had the time to build himself a new one. But it was the principle of the thing.

"But only to some of us," Steve said dryly, but was that... fondness, underneath? Tony peered at him out of the corner of his eye. After all, sure, they'd just downed a couple giants together, they were risking life and limb while crossdressing and naked, respectively, but...

The other Tony had killed Steve. How could Steve – how was he possibly looking past that?

"Right, well," Tony said briskly, uncurling from the wall, although he kept favouring his left arm. "You're shivering," he accused.

Steve was. The heat of the forge dropped off sharply; over on this side of the room, it might as well not have been there at all – which wasn't the way heat circulation ought to work, so apparently this room was more advanced than the rough stone walls would make it seem. "Where did they put your flag," he wondered, looking around.

"We need to go help Thor," Steve insisted. When Tony shot him a confused look, he added, "Listen. They're fighting above."

"Huh," Tony cocked his head to one side. So they were – he'd missed it, what with the blood thrumming in his ears and all. There was the distant sound of boing-boing-boing – Mjolnir meeting targets at full-speed. "They'll be fine, Thor's got his hammer back," he waved off Steve's concern, because if there was a duo that did not need help in a fight, Thor and Loki would be it. And even if they did need help, unless Steve got something to protect him from the cold, he wouldn't be the one to provide it. Tony could see that the sweat had frozen on his skin – how cold was this place, without protection? "Jesus Christ, get over here before you give yourself hypothermia," he said impatiently.

Possibly Steve was colder than he realized, because when Tony grabbed his arm and dragged him over to the forge, he went complacently enough. The flag was lying in a corner, covering a pile of rusty, jagged-looking metal tools that Tony resolutely did not look at. Perhaps that had been what the forge was for – although given the way that Steve was reacting, Tony rather suspected that it was just meant to keep non-jǫtnar prisoners alive. Any prisoner without protection wasn't likely to get far in the extreme cold.

"That won't keep you warm enough," he muttered, as he tossed Steve the flag. Steve took it, then held it out to one side, letting it soak in heat from the forge before finally wrapping it around himself and huddling in it. Tony ripped the loincloth off of one of the giants – and, okay, ew, but beggars couldn't be choosers – and spread it on the floor for Steve to stand on, biologically-contaminated side down – well, more-recently biologically-contaminated; it was fur, after all. It was probably full of lice, too.

At the forge, Vardrun was beginning to stir. Tony crossed over to him and raised the repulsor, preparing to put him permanently out of commission when Steve exclaimed, "Wait – don't kill him!"

"We need him for something?" Tony asked, looking up in surprise. Had he missed more than he'd thought during the fight? He would have sworn he'd only lost a couple of seconds.

Steve, gaping at him, sputtered, "You can't just – he's unconscious!"

"Right, and when he wakes up he'll be a headache," Tony said impatiently, a little coil of dreadful confusion mixing in his stomach. Steve hadn't killed Dofri or the other brother Grim, either, in the heat of combat – why not? Rogers certainly hadn't had any issues taking out Chitauri soldiers. The still-living giants would be a big problem, if they woke up and realized that he risked exposure moving away from the forge. If Tony left to go find Thor. If, if – if didn't fucking matter, they'd all been on board with the 'let's torture Steve' plan – they could rot in Helheim.

"He's a person. There're lines you don't cross," Steve growled.

"I'm pretty sure aliens aren't signatory to the Geneva Convention, and even if they were, oh, look at the pile of torture tools," Tony said, only somewhere in there it turned into a shout. His injured wrist was throbbing, and belatedly he realized it was because he'd been gesturing, had thrown out his hand in the direction of that awful collection.

Vardrun was stirring. They didn't have time to finish this argument before he'd be up – Tony aimed a low-power repulsor blast at him and knocked him out again, inwardly fuming.

"That's what makes us better than them," Steve said softly, into the silence left by the absence of Vardrun's awakening.

"Bullshit," Tony glared at him. "Don't tell me you went around nicely tapping Nazis on the head during the war, Captain."

"No, but when we took prisoners, we took prisoners – we didn't kill them!" So apparently the war was a soft spot for this Captain America, too, even if it was years behind him.

"And you did your level best to take prisoners and never shot to kill?" Tony gestured at the three giants that Steve had fought. "What the hell, Steve – "

"Killing is a last resort, and we don't – we don't kill somebody who's already down!"

"Christ, they deserve to die!" He was still shouting – why was he shouting? He hadn't let anybody get under his skin like this since – well, the only one still alive was Pepper, but there was Steve, standing there and demanding he just ignore what they'd been about to do, and all Tony could see was light glinting off of dirty water.

"That's not our call to make! We don't get to play judge, jury, and executioner, that's how you forget justice and start on vengeance – "

"This isn't a courtroom, Steve, this is war!" Tony shouted. "This is an alien species wanting to take you apart for fun! This is us versus them, when they have all the toys, all the advantages, and we're – we're under siege! The war's never over, not for us, and it never will be so long as you just let them go, let them keep on coming back with new and better weapons, giving them second chances to fuck everything up again!"

His breathing was out of control – oh, great, and he had the boobs to go with it. A heaving bosom might have been on his list of things to experience (again) before dying, but not like that. Everything was out of control and this dress had boobs and no pockets, he wanted pockets, pockets to stuff his hands in so he wouldn't have to notice how they were shaking. He wanted out of this room.

"Is this still about the jǫtnar?" Steve asked him, and Tony didn't know how to reply.

There was the sound of pounding footsteps in the hall outside, and they both simultaneously broke off their staring match to look at the door. Tony brought his arm up, bracing it for a full-powered repulsor blast, because goddamnit, screw Cap and his over-the-top ideals. (In the back of his head, something dark and ugly whispered, No wonder his version of you murdered him. Tony ignored it.)

Thor burst through the doorway, his hammer raised high as he surveyed the room. At some point, he'd lost his veil and headdress, but the dress had stood up surprisingly well – or not-so-surprisingly, considering Asgardian fashion's other properties. "My friends!" he exclaimed, sounding pleased. "I feared you had encountered some difficulty, but it seems you have the matter well in hand." He walked forward, casually kicking Dofri in the head when the giant seemed to stir at his voice. The force of the blow caved in Dofri's head, but somehow Thor's shoes repelled any brain-matter that might have clung to them. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Steve's face darken.

"This isn't your world, Captain," Tony said, pitching his voice low and harsh.

Thor stopped in front of them and stared between them in confusion. "Is something else amiss?" he asked.

"Yes," Steve snapped.

"No, it's fine, it's just – it's fine," Tony said at the same time, staring Steve down until the other man breathed out a sigh that seemed to decrease him somehow and covered his eyes with one hand. "We need your brother to whip up some clothes for the Captain so he doesn't freeze his bits off, though, and crush the dreams of the adult American population – and I think I'd like something other than a dress to wear if we're going to be trekking back, that'd be cool." Experimentally, he reached down the top of the dress and started fumbling with the fake boobs – what were they made of, anyway, that they seemed so real? He came up with a sort of fitted gel cap that glowed faintly in the firelight.

"Of course," Thor nodded, before bellowing, "LOKI!" At a more normal volume, he went on cheerfully, "I am none too fond of this apparel myself!" swinging his hammer in a wide arc to emphasize his words. Which, to Tony, mostly emphasized the fact that oh, right, Thor had been drunk before all this again, and then he'd gone and drunk a few flagons while he was demolishing the rest of Thrym's feast. Standing within swinging distance of Mjolnir was probably a bad idea.

Green and gold light flickered, and Loki melted out of the shadows. He had already ditched his own dress – as well as his female form – and returned to a type of garb that was uncomfortably similar to what he'd been wearing when the Loki from Tony's universe had surrendered in Stuttgard: mostly leather, lots of green, but without the ridiculous helmet. He pursed his lips before waving a hand, and Tony squawked as the dress reformed around him, twisting and writhing like – well, okay, he'd looked into tentacles, nothing more, it hadn't been much of a turn-on, not with – it was abad idea, and this feeling definitely left him convinced that he'd been right to never give it a serious try. As his clothing settled into a copy of what he'd been wearing under the armor, he found himself patting his body down unconsciously, trying to reassure himself that none of him had gotten changed. He looked up in time to catch Loki's smirk.

"Most unseemly, brother," Thor said with disapproval, but it vanished a moment later as he happily clapped an arm around Loki's shoulders – who didn't even stagger under the force of it, to Tony's disappointment. But then, even if Loki looked like a dweeb, Tony had seen first-hand the amount of punishment that he could take – sure, he'd get hit, but Tony wasn't really sure that he could actually be killed; he'd stood up to full-force repulsor blasts, the Destroyer weapon, and, JARVIS had reported, the Hulk in a very bad mood. He got hurt, but he just seemed to keep on going, like a demented version of the Energizer bunny crossed with a goat.

"Satisfied, Captain?" Loki drawled, and Tony looked over back at Steve. The flag had vanished, warping into something that looked similar to the uniform Rogers had been wearing, but – was thatchainmail? He looked closer. So it was. Well, that was Asgardian fashion for you.

Steve's face, though – he just looked... tired. Exhausted, really, so much that Tony almost felt bad for arguing with him earlier, except for how Steve had been a major prick. But then, Tony knew he could be a complete asshole when he was... less than optimal (if he had to admit it only to himself, he might go so far as to say it was a first line of defence), and Steve had been sent flying through worlds and times and then shown up again in time to almost get tortured, and then had his naive idealism trampled all over. Okay, scratch that, Tony did feel bad. Steve was a soldier, but, Jesus, with that lost look on his face, Tony sort of wanted to make the rest of the big bad world go away and give him a hug. If he could encapsulate that look in an aerosol form, he would have world peace in a bottle. Hmm...

"Yeah, I'm fine," Steve said after a moment, dragging a hand over his eyes and scrubbing at his face. Tony walked over and slung an arm over his shoulders – which, hey, was possible, because Loki had actually increased the height of his lifts a little bit. Excellent. He shot a half-smirk, half-thankful-smile at Loki, and then felt very weird doing so, with him standing there looking like that. At least he didn't have any sort of spear in his hands.

Well, he'd already made up his mind on that regard – albeit when Loki was dressed (and shaped) like an extremely hot woman, not like he had been when he'd killed – and Tony's mind wasn't going there, no, it was not. Tony sighed. "Right. Thanks. Let's go home, guys."

Thor led the way out, up the giant staircase (which Steve didn't carry him up piggy-backed, but then they weren't in a hurry, so it was fine; so what if he had to clamber awkwardly up the steps when the other three just easily leapt up them) and out through the hall – which was even more disgusting than it had been when they'd left. Now, instead of merely being littered with animal droppings, it was also littered with corpses, and Steve just looked... sad.

"Where did you go?" Tony asked him, casting about desperately for a topic as they picked their way past giant bodies. Most looked to have been crushed or tossed about by Mjolnir, but there were also a large number of them with sharper wounds and knives in their necks – as if Tony needed any reminder of Loki's lethality.

"I'm a soldier, Tony," Steve said, not taking his eyes off of the floor – which was probably wise; Tony stepped in something that squished and winced, hurrying forward toward the door and the promise of clean air. "It was a war. It always is – if not the middle, then the aftermath. Or the preparation."

"You're not in a war right now," he replied, and damnit, he hadn't meant for his voice to sound that soft.

"Aren't I?"

Shit. "I didn't mean it like that," he protested half-heartedly. This was – this was emotional feely-stuff, Tony didn't do this sort of thing, not for anybody but Pepper, and, well, Rhodey, that one time, but that had mostly consisted of getting Rhodey drunk. Which was not entirely off the table, at the moment – the Asgardians were sure to throw a party once they had Mjolnir back, weren't they? He rushed forward to ask Thor about just that, trying not to feel as though he were abandoning Steve.

Behind them, from the dead and lonely barn-cum-feasthall, a rooster crowed. Tony thought he heard a harp, too, oddly, but all he saw when he turned back was a large red rooster, much brighter than the one in Helheim had been – heh, another large red cock, he wondered if he could get Steve to say that again – but his smile died as he looked at Steve, trudging along, looking so... sad. The rooster crowed again, sounding far too cheerful for being surrounded by so much death, and then a third time, and then it was silent. What was a rooster doing here, anyway? Wasn't it too cold for things like roosters?

"And perhaps now that I have won it back, it will be mine in truth as well as in name," Thor was going on, sounding hopeful. "Father has until now proclaimed me yet unready, but surely after our victory here he will think otherwise!"

"Of course he will," Tony agreed, while Loki grunted, non-committal. "A mighty brawl, and all that."

"I owe you a great debt!" Thor said, swinging the hammer around. Tony dodged, belatedly remembering how he'd decided to stand out of range, and prudently moved back a ways. "For I am no lie-smith as skilled as my brother, and I think that indeed without the distractions provided by you and Steve, they would have seen through our deception ere they put the hammer in my hands."

"Glad to help," Tony said, although he had to wonder. In the myth they'd done okay, and Tony and Steve certainly hadn't been in that tale. That and Thor's blond hair, though, those were the only differences he'd picked up so far between this world and the myths. Maybe he should be focusing more on remembering what he'd read...

He caught a glimpse of Steve's set face and sighed inwardly. Or maybe he should just be focusing on a way to get home – and a way to get Steve back to his home. Getting tossed through the multiverse couldn't be good for anyone's state of mind.

---

The walk back took a lot longer than the trip out, but it was infinitely more dignified (although, since the trip out had had exactly zero dignity, literally anything would have been infinitely more dignified, because that was what you got when you attempted to divide by fucking zero). Standing around with a drunken Thor and a slightly tipsy Loki – who didn't really show it, until he was suddenly razzing on Thor as his brother yelled at the sky for Heimdallr to open the bifrost – well, that wasn't big on dignity either. Nor was getting snatched up and vomited back out by a rainbow for the third time that day.

And this time, their arrival had a (very) dignified audience. Well, that was cool. Tony had plenty of experience looking like an asshat in front of disapproving old men; since Nick Fury had decided to drop into his life, he even had practice doing so in front of disapproving one-eyed pirates, although on a second look he had to take that back, Odin was definitely not a pirate, he was rocking the Viking look far too well to be associated with anything near the Caribbean. Well, Vikings had plundered and pillaged a lot like pirates, hadn't they?

"Thor," intoned another Very Disapproving Old Guy – well, Tony had to cut him a break. He wasn't actually sure if he was old, although the sheer gravitas that he managed to infuse Thor's name with definitely pointed to ancient – but ancient in the 'leviathan from the deep', sense, not in the '102-year-old granny in a nursing home' way. He'd retrieved the sword that Loki had stuck into the bifrost machine to make it work (OSHA would have even more of a field day with these guys than they would with Tony's lab, and that was saying something) and had positioned it point down, his hands folded over the hilt. "Loki."

Did he actually have – ? Tony was pretty sure that there was something other than just (hah, 'just') gravitas going on with his voice, that was definitely a departure from a normal human or Asgardian voice box, because it was way too – it was making him want to stand up straight and look shamefaced, just like Steve was doing. Loki seemed to be looking for a convenient corner to disappear into, while Thor looked guilty for all of a half-second before he held Mjolnir up. But even then he didn't manage to make it look wholly triumphant, and if Tony had thought him rather like a large, shaggy dog when he'd first met him, then this Thor – drunk, obviously-a-bit-younger-than-Tony's-version-Thor – was much more like a puppy, paws too big for his body and enthusiasm too much for his wagging tail. A puppy that could, y'know, kill a barn full of frost giants, but hey, puppies could be lethal – especially to Persian rugs.

"Your trickery left this realm open to invasion, and that is not a crime that I can take lightly," the guy-with-the-sword intoned (again with the intoning – did this guy speak in any other way?).

The butt of the spear that Odin All-Father was holding came down to rest lightly on the floor. The resultant ringing thud made Tony's bones itch, and he had to resist the urge to clamp his hands over his ears – less so because the noise was loud, as because it felt like it was making his brain vibrate. He ground his teeth together and willed himself to ignore it.

"But in this case you have saved a precious artefact of Asgard from unworthy hands," Odin said mildly, "And much may be forgiven for that – if this never happens again. Heimdallr's task is far too important for him to be distracted by your pranks." His expression hadn't changed, but his eye had gone hard as flint as he glared at his two miscreant sons. "I will have your oath on this."

"You have it, father," Loki murmured immediately, at the same time as Thor said, "Yes, father."

"Thor, Loki, this day you have done several magnificent things – admittedly, some things which ought not be done," Odin chuckled, and wow, it was just like when Fury chuckled, Tony was left wondering if the joke was that the eye-patch was about to eat him, "but also some deeds that will live on in legend. Well done, my sons." He sounded proud.

Tony was not jealous. He was forty-something years old, he was not going to be jealous of anybody else's dad, especially not an alien dad who had raised – well, okay, Thor was decent, but Loki was a fucking psychopath, and that wasn't the point. He hadn't felt this way in years, why the hell was he feeling like this now, was this some Asgardian thing? He grimaced.

"I see you have brought guests," Odin turned to Tony and Steve, saying offhandedly, "Yes, Thor, you have proven yourself of age and worth enough to keep the hammer," when Thor opened his mouth. He shut it again promptly, looking pleased, while Loki rolled his eyes. "Be welcome in Asgard, Steven Rogers, for you have always been a man of great worth."

"Thank you, sir," Steve said politely, looking strangely touched. Huh. Was he getting dad-vibes too? Maybe it was just an Asgardian thing, then – which meant that Tony was completely right to ignore it, not that he'd planned on doing otherwise.

"Anthony Edward Stark," Odin went on, turning to face Tony. For a brief moment, he looked... tired? Wary? Tony wasn't sure, but he felt his hackles rise, even as he wanted to joke, "What, no welcome for me?" If he couldn't have that, then he'd claim as a prize being able to make the Asgardian king look guarded. Tony smiled, sharp and shark-like. It wasn't quite the same without sunglasses, but – he'd make do. Odin caught his eyes and stared back, not challenging – just mild. So mild. "You have aided my sons, and an ally of Asgard; be welcome here, for the nonce."

"Thanks," Tony said back, never dropping his smile. Shit, what the hell was his problem?

What the hell was Steve's problem, that he had no issues palling around with a doppelganger of the man who'd gotten him killed? No issues except their fundamentally different viewpoints on the necessity of lethal force. Maybe Odin was right to be wary. This was a universe full of deities, and somewhere, another Tony Stark had killed the American Dream.

He'd always thought he'd known what he was capable of. Then a group of terrorists had forced his head underwater and he'd drowned. Somewhere, another possible Tony had died from that drowning. Somewhere, another Tony had joined the Ten Rings of his own free will.

Somewhere, America was a fascist dictatorship and Steve Rogers fought for tyranny – or so the theory of infinite worlds would claim, but that seemed a lot more ridiculous.

"Come, my sons," Odin was saying, one arm going up to clasp Thor about the shoulder, the other to pull in Loki, the spear dropped back to the crook of his elbow. "You have reclaimed our lost treasure and proven yourselves worthy of adulthood. We shall feast this night! Your mother has been preparing all this while, busying herself so that she cannot fret; I feared she would overwork the cooks before your return."

"That would be most welcome," Thor said eagerly, which, seriously? "The giant's repast was greatly wanting." Seriously?

They strolled out of the chamber, dragging Loki along with them, although Tony noted that he didn't look unhappy that this was his fate. As they left Thor attempted to begin to regaling his father of the tale, and Odin hushed him, advising him to keep it until the dinner instead. Tony shook his head, letting the grin fade, and turned to see what had become of his armour – last he'd seen it, it had been piled in a corner, but those pieces definitely weren't there now.

"Heimdall, right?" Steve asked the last remaining Asgardian, who didn't look like he planned to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Heimdallr nodded regally, not taking his hands from the hilt of his sword or relaxing his stance as he calmly intoned, "I am." After a moment studying his face – and his strange, golden eyes – Tony decided that this wasn't personal: it was just the way the guy was, much like how Rhodey periodically got a stick up his ass. He tried to cast his mind over the myths that he'd read, but Heimdallr had never featured in them as more than a watcher. The reports from the New Mexico incident, though, had mentioned Thor yelling at the sky, as if he expected that that Heimdallr – Heimdall? It had been Heimdall, in the reports – could see him. Had Thor been carrying Asgardian communication tech – or was that all on this guy? Tony could believe it, if it was.

"Modgud said that you might be able to help us," Steve continued after a moment. "We're... a long ways from home."

"And I'm without my armour," Tony put in, because it was definitely nowhere in the chamber and he hadn't activated the bracelets again, so it hadn't gotten up and moved on its own.

The interruption earned him the full attention of Heimdallr's stare. Tony met his gaze unflinchingly, drawing from reserves of arrogance to keep his chin up and his stance loose. If there was one thing that Tony knew how to do, it was how to best use his resources when they were limited. When unlimited... well, he could admit that he sometimes got a bit excessive.

Heimdallr wasn't looking at him, though, so much as he was looking through him – Tony had to resist the urge to turn around and look behind him; he knew that wasn't what it was. No, it was like Tony was... the focus point? Quite possibly, he thought, because after a moment Heimdallr said, "Your armour was taken to guest chambers prepared for you. You may go there, if you wish."

And that was the out. Tony smirked and didn't take it – the armour was important, the armour was extremely important, but if it was being held up as bait to get them out of this chamber, or this conversation, then this was even more important. "Nah, I'm good for now," he said carelessly, not looking at Steve – he could imagine the expression on the other man's face just fine.

Heimdallr didn't so much nod this time as rather 'incline' his head – which, seriously, this guy was sort of amazing. Tony had an urge to offer him a job, just standing outside of Stark Tower and being the most awesome doorman ever – but then, if he'd read the situation aright, that was basically Heimdallr's current job right now, except for an entire alien realm. Even Tony might have difficulty offering better benefits than King Odin of Asgard. "Do you work nine-to-five, or are you sort of always on duty, like a fireman?" he wondered aloud. Heimdallr just stared at him impassively.

"If you can help us get home... please," Steve asked, earnestly and sincerely, and somehow without managing to sound as if he was begging – something about all that noble dignity, perhaps. "There are people back home – they need us."

Did they? Tony short Steve a look of mild surprise. Well, he supposed that the rest of the Chitauri still had to be dealt with, but with the mothership blown to bits, the rest of the Avengers wouldn't have too much of a problem mopping up the stragglers – especially if the military finally showed up (okay, maybe they did need him, to raise unholy hell about that fuck-up – because he was damn good at raising hell, even if he said so himself. But there was also Fury – and Fury didn't need reinforcements, he was a one-man, one-eyed army all by himself). He wondered what Steve had been doing when the other Tony had killed him.

"Your path is already written," Heimdallr proclaimed after a moment of staring through Steve – and that made sense, Tony realized. Tracking software did much better when you could give it a starting point; why shouldn't alien software work the same way? It wasn't proof for it, but the fact that human methods worked that way ruled out immediate proof against it, until evidence was presented otherwise. "You will find your way home eventually, Steven Rogers. There are already those who look for your soul, wandering lost from your physical form. You have but to wait for them to find you."

Steve slumped, his head drooping, and Tony shot Heimdallr a glare. He'd only been around Steve for a day and he'd seen how much the jumping-between-realities thing was taking out of him. I'm a soldier, he'd said, It was a war. It always is. The unending threat of violence – against yourself or against others... Tony knew how exhausting that was, what it took out of you, bone and marrow.

"No one can see me," Steve said, starting in a mumble but making his words crisper as he went on. "Except for Tony – him," he gestured to Tony, "Not the others. Only the other people in this world, and this world isn't mine. How can my people find me if I don't exist to them?"

"Yeah, and why is that, anyway, that I can see him?" Tony asked.

Heimdallr's golden gaze shifted to him. "These Nine Realms sit at the center of all others," he explained, the words rolling out of his mouth and about the chamber, carrying enough import to make Tony's bones start itching again. "They are the nexus, the truest visions of reality. Our reflections in other realms are extensions of ourselves, while here lies the core. Our vision is passed on through this world, allowing mortals here to see as we do."

"World, realm, or reality?" Tony let his tone sharpen. "The Foster Theory holds that the Nine Realms are clustered within one of the higher dimensions, but Steve's from an alternate earth to mine – how far does that go?"

"As far as my sight. A realm may refer to any individual world created within the higher dimensions; we do not concern ourselves with the lower, for the distances soon prove too extreme. This realm is the center of the cluster within which we Aesir live. There may yet be universes that exist beyond this cluster, and thus beyond my gaze, but if so, they remain unknown to us."

"Oh," Tony breathed. Heimdallr and Steve both looked at him – Steve in confusion, Heimdallr with wariness, and wasn't that awesome? "You guys exist across more dimensions that we do, consciously – no, hang on, then how come – right, no, of course. Thor said he'd not yet met us because he hadn't, not here, but he had elsewhere, but the elsewhere doesn't know – they're connected across other realities, while we aren't," he explained to Steve. "But the ones not from here, they're like – fingers, they don't know what the rest of the body is doing, where here is the brain, it can keep track of everything. But they're still all the same – the Thor from your universe, from my universe, from this universe, they're all the same Thor, and – what the hell, that means they're all the same Loki!" He whirled back to face Heimdall. "What are you doing, letting him run around like – what are you doing?"

"Your view is too simple," Heimdallr informed him. "Many things that have been written have not yet come to pass, and until such time as they do, we cannot pre-determine the truth of them. In too many cases have such prophecies been proven false." His eyes narrowed, the gold in them brightening. "Especially recently."

"Screw that, what about the things he's already done?" Tony snapped. "Or do you just not care – a thousand mortal lives here or there? Of an infinite number universes, how many do you want to bet he's a mass-murderer in?"

"He is in mine," Steve said, stepping up to Tony's side. Despite himself Tony found himself standing taller, the support making it somehow easier to face down a god with truth and argument, rather than simple, empty arrogance (not so empty: he made a pan-dimensional being nervous, that was awesome).

"The realms in which we reside are not infinite," Heimdallr stated. "And neither are we. If one aspect of us does ill, then it is that aspect that deserves punishment. Our selves are spread across many possibilities, and we are both all of these things and none. This is not a concept that mortals are made to understand."

"Shit," Tony muttered. Shit. Because the worst part of it was he could see where they were coming from, he could –just like he could see the counter-arguments, the ones that Steve was already opening his mouth to list, and they all paled before that realization, the fundamental knowledge of we are not like you. Could you hold an immortal to a mortal's standards – much less a pan-dimensional alien? Human beings could commit crimes so terrible, so horrific, that to be locked up the rest of their life was a pittance – but what if that life was extended ten-fold, a hundred, a thousand? People couldn't change, but immortals...

He had been the Merchant of Death, with so much blood on his hands, and now he swanned about in a billion-dollar suit, trying so desperately to make up for what he'd done and knowing that in his lifetime he'd never be able to – but what if he wasn't limited to his lifetime? Given an eternity, or enough realities to approximate it, when could it be said, enough, they've paid for their crimes, we're done? If you decided it was never, didn't that just mean nothing you do from now on matters at all?

But none of that mattered when all he thought about Dr. Shäfer with his eye torn out. Bodies in the streets of Manhattan, gunned down by the Chitauri. A bloodstain on a metal wall.

And trying to say that in the face of the overwhelming otherness of a pan-dimensional alien would be as futile as trying to argue with an internet troll.

"That's not – " Steve had started to say, but Tony jumped in and started talking over top of him.

"Steve, let it go," he said, and earned himself a cold glare for it. "No, let it go, this isn't the time, or the place, this isn't – this isn't our universe, our world, and hey, he just said I oversimplified so maybe it's completely wrong, like Newton's Laws, I mean, you'd never apply those to inter-planetary travel, they just become wrong no matter how much they work for civil engineers – "

"This isn't about – "

" – but it is, okay? We can't – please, not right now," he muttered, eyeing Heimdallr. Not without his armour, not without – maybe not ever.

Maybe he didn't want to know the answer.

"Tony," Steve sighed, and he sounded so tired again, that Tony couldn't look at him. But after a moment of silence, he sighed again and asked Heimdallr, "What about him?"

He'd tilted his head toward Tony – always looking out for his troops, Tony supposed. But Heimdallr shook his head. "I cannot see the world from which you fell, Stark, and while there are ways to hide from even my sight, there are none which would obscure an entire realm. Nor do I know of any method of travel that would take you such a distance as to be from a place beyond my gaze. There are few enough ways that mortals may travel even limited distances between realms and survive."

Tony felt his mouth twist, open to say something bitter – and shut it again. Great. Why was every Asgardian he met completely useless? What did these people have against him? Obviously Heimdallr was wrong, clearly he'd missed out, either on a method of travel or on an entire alternate universe – Tony wasn't even going to think of the headache if he was right. That way lay crazy-land, and thinking he wasn't who he really was, when he'd made himself every step of the way and had the arc reactor to prove it.

If he wasn't...

Heimdallr was a pan-dimensional being. Wouldn't he know?

"You said there were guest quarters?" Steve directed the question at Heimdallr, but he was looking at Tony in concern. Carefully, Tony schooled his expression to neutrality, wondering what he'd given away.

Heimdallr nodded and tilted his head toward the door.

"Right. I want to ask more about this," Steve said in a tone that would brook no opposition – but Heimdallr didn't say anything, just stood there and kept looking impassive.

Tony nearly jumped as Steve placed one hand on his arm. He did flinch, unable to entirely control the reaction, not with worlds and possibilities and guilt spiraling out in his head, equations and estimations and body-counts more real in his mind than anything his eyes could see. But Steve didn't pull back, just guided him gently away, pushing one of the massive gold doors open and leading him out into Asgard.

And oh. That was a sight.

Stars swirled above and below them, reflected in a sea that dropped off of the edge of the world, water falling down, down, into infinity. The bridge on which they stood was translucent, with muted rainbows running through it in pulses – it probably glowed brighter when the bifrost was in use, Tony speculated, when the big rainbow needed power from all the little ones. It led into a gleaming city in the distance, golden towers rising like the pipes of the universe's biggest organ, the mountains and stars overhead comprising the cathedral. It was spectacular – Tony felt his mind scrabbling for how, how, how, how was he breathing when he could see the stars so directly like that, what was keeping them pulled down to the bridge, what was the bridge made of, how was it supported, how large was the city –

"This is even more impressive than Asgard back home," Steve commented. Even he had been knocked out of his grim and important thoughts by the beauty of the world before them.

Tony hummed, drinking it in. "Can't say I've been."

There were no guards – there was no one around at all, not even to point the way – but it wasn't like they needed any; there was only one way for them to go, and not exactly anything for them to break on the way there. The bridge had no handrails, so Tony went right up to the edge and looked off of it, examining the stars. They seemed... off; brighter, perhaps, than he was used to from earth, although not as bright as they were from orbit, which made sense if he assumed that there was an atmosphere and that he and Steve were, in fact, not currently suffocating to death. They weren't wrong in the way the Chitauri's stars had been, but nor were they as glorious and brilliant as the stars about Yggdrasil. They were... well, they were stars, and the occasional nebula. He filed away the images in his brain, to cross-reference astronomical databases with when (if) he got back (to where?), and then went back to Steve, who was still looking his fill off of the other side of the bridge.

"I didn't mean to dump all that on you back there," Tony said after a minute of silence, which was not awkward only by virtue of the very strange and pretty scenery.

"It's fine," Steve said, but he looked sad again, and it made Tony's insides feel all knotted up.

"It's not fine. It – you're right, Steve. There's a line. But some people – there are people out there that are so horrible that no one but us is going to get the chance to judge them, and to get rid of them, to prevent them from destroying other people. And if we can't stop them..." Tony closed his eyes. "I don't know where the line is, sometimes. Sometimes I just have to guess. I'm sorry. I'm not – " he clicked his teeth closed before he could say, I'm not you.

Because sure, Captain Righteous was a pain in the ass – even if Steve, older, wiser, and with a sense of humour had grown on him – but nobody could deny that he was. Well. Righteous. The type of man who would show mercy to an alien who'd been about to torture him.

"I don't know either," Steve said. "I thought I did once. And then I nearly killed my best friend." Tony opened his eyes and glanced over to see that Steve had bowed his head. What? Best friend? That had been Bucky Barnes, right? Or was Steve talking about somebody that he'd met after the ice? He couldn't mean... "I got so caught up in defending the line that I couldn't see all the people I was hurting. But when I finally got it – when I gave up..."

Gave up? Tony found himself mouthing the words, because if there was anything that Steve Rogers did not do, it was give up. He'd seen the interview transcripts – the records of fights he'd gone into, long before the serum (fights he'd lost); fights he'd gone into since. His picture was in the dictionary under 'stubborn', no redirect needed.

But – that wasn't entirely true. Steve – this Steve – he'd given up. He'd given up three times now, if Tony counted – three times when someone (Tony) had gone head-to-head with him and tried to overrule him, and he'd let it happen. Dofri's death, and Loki's state... and now this, right before. All... all involving him. Shit. What had he done?

"But everything seems worse now," Steve concluded quietly, and he looked so exhausted. "And this new information about Loki... you're right. We can't hope to contain him, if the Asgardians here aren't even willing to consider it."

Tony reached out tentatively, but turned the near-hug into an awkward pat on the shoulder before he could actually complete it. Steve looked like he could use a hug, but – right, maybe affection from Tony wasn't the best thing for Steve, given the apparent results. "When's the last time you slept?" he asked instead, voice more abrupt than usual to cover his hesitation.

Steve looked up and blinked at him. "What?"

"Sleep, Cap – not just for the weak, also for the tired, assuming they're lacking coffee, which has been in heartbreakingly short supply. When?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't know. I don't get tired, or hungry." His lips quirked at whatever he saw on Tony's face (in his mind's eye, Tony did a quick check and came up with a mild mix of shock and horror – well, shit. He schooled it away, but obviously it was too late now). "I still have a pulse. I still feel alive. But I'm not." He looked back down at the stars below.

The question hovered on Tony's lips. He nearly swallowed it back, but – damn it, he'd never been any good at keeping himself from asking questions, even when he wasn't certain that he wanted to know the answer – especially when he wasn't certain that he wanted to know the answer. "What do you see? When you're not... here."

"Different stuff," Steve said slowly. "Other – other ways things could have gone. Battles I fought in... ones that I didn't. Things I could have prevented. I've seen you – my you, I mean. Other you's, sometimes. My you... he's not doing well." He shook his head. "None of them are. Everything I see falls apart in the end. I'm sort of waiting for Ragnarok to start here."

Tony tipped his head to the side and took a careful step back from the edge. "It's just a story, Steve."

"I thought you said this was all happening according to your myths?"

"Not all of it," he shrugged, blithely stuffing away the part of him (the greater part) that wanted to agree in the back of his head. The exact truth wasn't what Steve needed to hear right now. "Pretty sure you and I weren't in any of them, but look at us, here we are. And if we're going on stories, well, you do know they call this place the Realm Eternal, right? So let's go... be good guests, relax, drink lots of mead. Take a break." Horribly, he felt his voice go all gentle again. "We earned it." You earned it.

When Steve stepped into stride with him, it felt like a sort of victory.

---

On foot, it took a ridiculous amount of time to reach the city proper; Tony would have wondered why the bifrost machine needed to be so far away, but he'd seen the way it was situated out on the edge of the world. The question answered itself. A quartet of guards stood at the end of the bridge, as emotionless as the fabled guards of Buckingham Palace, and with hats that could give the queen's finest a run for their money. One of their number was dispatched to show Tony and Steve to side-by-side rooms that, Tony had to admit, dwarfed even the quarters of his Malibu mansion. He instantly began designing some renovations in his head – he'd learned a lot about architecture and interior design in the past year, and, well, gold was one of his colours. It would be fitting to do the entire place in it, right? Pepper had claimed it would look tacky, but Asgard certainly pulled it off well.

He skipped up the stairs into the suite, leaving his guard to close the door behind him. Two couches were arranged in front of an enormous fireplace that burned merrily, packed with cushions stuffed to just the right degree, singing a siren song of Come, lie down, rest. For a moment he stared longingly at them, but – no. Priorities. Armour first.

The armour stood out nearly anywhere Tony went – but then, Asgard wasn't just anywhere. Whoever had moved it here had propped it up on a frame in the corner, leaving the disassembled pieces just stacked neatly instead of putting them back into any sort of order – but the glowing blue beacon at the heart of it was lit up again, and Tony let himself cheer (what? There was nobody around – and even if there were watchers, well, screw them). He picked up the helmet immediately and put it on, hit the override and watched the HUD come to life from a full reboot.

"Sir," JARVIS greeted him, a note of polite confusion in his voice, and Tony felt like he was twenty-one and a brilliant new father all over again, bringing the world's first human-level (oh, who was he kidding, JARVIS was way beyond most humans) AI to life.

"Full diagnostics, JARVIS, I want to know if anything's missing that wasn't already damaged," he ordered, still grinning. "Wow, good to have you back."

"I am happy to be back," JARVIS said, still sounding a bit confused. Poor kid, he hadn't been offline like that since – well, ever. Tony had made some tweaks to his code in the first few weeks after onlining him – after that, JARVIS learned how to take care of himself – but even then he'd never turned JARVIS 'off'. Turning him offline would have been like, well, a doctor knocking out their patient before giving them a checkup. It just wasn't on. "Sir, where are we?"

"Asgard – of a completely different reality. When I get back I think I'll have to take another look at string theory and make a bunch of physicists cry," he said exultantly. "We're good for now, but we may have watchers – I dunno, they're nice but don't seem too keen on me. Wonder why – everybody likes me!" He threw out his arms and twirled in place, not even caring at the way his left arm protested the movement.

"Indeed," said JARVIS, and that, there was the dry tone that let Tony know that JARVIS was peachy-okay. "Initiating full diagnostics."

He kept the helmet on, keeping an eye on the diagrams and numbers that JARVIS provided as he started reassembling everything, especially the gauntlet that he'd taken apart. In return, he gave JARVIS a run-down on what he'd missed, skimping on the details that would make him worry too much. The armour still had damage from the battle, of course – but nothing much that he could repair without welding gear. When they were done it all fit back together in its nice roll-y-case, though, and Tony took off the helmet and let it slot into place as JARVIS gave him the final damage run-down. Nothing seemed to be missing that hadn't been knocked out of place back in Manhattan.

"Keep an eye out, JARVIS, I'm gonna check out the rest of the room," Tony ordered, and let JARVIS's indignant, "Of course, sir," put a bit of skip in his step as he explored the rest of the main room. There was a bathroom – he thought it was a bathroom, but wasn't sure; maybe he should hold off on confirming that – off to one side, but the main room, although extremely large, didn't seem to hold much else other than the sunken firepit and those lovely, enticing couches.

He let himself sprawl across one, groaning in pleasure as the cushions molded to his body, letting muscles that he had forgotten were hurting relax. When the sound of running water interrupted his consciousness, he barely even registered it until it went on long enough to call attention to another very mortal need. Then he dug himself out of the couch – not without sending it longing glances all the while – and went back to give the bathroom a second look.

It was aptly named. An enormous hollow set into the floor turned out to be a tub – really, 'jacuzzi' was probably a better word for it than 'tub' – possibly he should be going with 'pool'. Steam gently wafted from its surface, over which a last few ripples played as it finished filling from a giant golden spout; there didn't seem to be any temperature controls. Golden seats, molded for form, extended down under the water, and he imagined leaning into them and letting the water soothe away his hurts.

Yeah, right.

"Great," he mumbled. There was no sign of a shower anywhere.

The tub felt more like a pointed suggestion than a courtesy, though. Tony thought it over as made use of what he very much hoped was the toilet – was that there just for mortals? Or was it not actually a toilet, and he had just committed some terrible faux pas? Did gods need toilets? Well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd pissed where he shouldn't have. Rather alarmingly, there was no sink to wash his hands at, although he did locate towels. Well, he could do this. He could – sponge bathe, or something. He'd done it before, sponged down before a sink rather than navigate the shower with injuries.

Gingerly, he picked up the soap and a towel and knelt by the edge of the steaming tub. If he leaned forward enough then he could see his reflection in it, before he disrupted it by dipping in the towel –

- water swirled about him, he couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. There were people behind him, holding his hands, his hands were tied – the water was cold, so damn cold, it felt like it was freezing on his face and he started to inhale by reflex, water rushing up his nose and into his mouth, dirty and disgusting. He coughed, expelling the last dregs of air in his lungs as his body fought against drowning, and then he was out of oxygen and nearly inhaled again. They were trying to break him – he knew they wouldn't let him drown, they wouldn't let him drown because they needed him, so he just had to hold out long enough and they'd pull him out. They'd pull him out. He had to – he needed air, and they weren't pulling him out, but they would, they would, they had to, please, they needed him – air, air, air –

- "Sir, you are alright, I am in the next room. There is no one else here except us. We are in Asgard, and you were attempting to bathe. We are both fine, and no one else is present. I am in the next room – "

JARVIS's voice, overriding the speaker system to project loudly enough, brought him back to himself. He was huddled on the floor, hands over his head as he gasped for breath. The tiling was golden, as was the roof. The light was good. There was no water in sight, although he knew that the tub was still behind him, but he wasn't thinking about that. He wasn't.

Something caught in his throat; he was still breathing too fast, and he started coughing, hard enough that spots danced before his vision. Air, air, air, his brain chanted – just like before – but this time when his body tried to breathe in again he got air, not water. Air.

Tony let his head rest against the tiles and muttered a quiet but heartfelt, "Fuck."

"Are you present again, sir?" JARVIS interrupted his soothing monologue to ask.

"Yeah – I'm. Fuck. I'm here. Fuck," he muttered again to the floor.

"Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to return to the main room," JARVIS ventured after a minute or two. Or it could have been an hour. Who knew? Well, JARVIS probably did.

"No," he breathed out. "I mean – just, give me a moment."

After a while – he didn't know how long – after his heartbeat had ceased pounding in his ears, and his breathing had stopped rasping, and his cheek had grown cold from the tile, he shut his eyes and hauled himself back up to sitting position. He kept his eyes closed as he groped his hand, with the towel, over the side of the tub, and let it dip into the hot water. It was just a sink – a small sink. Like the one in his bathroom, which was flat and had extra drains so that water never, ever built up – except there was definitely water there. Okay, like a hotel sink, which he could use without his hands shaking so long as he kept his eyes closed. This was just like that.

He managed to wash his hands and face before his willpower ran out, arrogance shrivelling up against this foe that he'd not been able to beat since Afghanistan, no matter how hard he tried. Growling, he tossed the towel and soap away and climbed to his feet, determinedly staring straight ahead and never at anything behind him, even though it made the back of his neck crawl. "JARVIS, sitrep," he snapped. The need to look around was so bad that he almost tripped on the stairs leading up from the washroom back into the main room.

"We are presently in Asgard, in guest quarters set aside for your use. No one else is currently present, and no one has entered or exited these rooms since you reactivated me. The armour is functional despite damage from the prior battle, which is largely un-repairable without the Malibu or Tower facilities..."

JARVIS's voice helped, but it once Tony was back at the couches he let himself collapse again, cursing mentally. Fuck. Fuck Asgard and fuck their lack of showers. Fuck his own fucking weakness, having a breakdown when Odin One-Eye could probably see everything. Fuck him – Tony wouldn't put it past him to have set this up on purpose. Just – fuck. He wanted to climb into the armour so badly, but he'd been trying to stop using it as a crutch for this. It was far too dangerous to go around wearing a tank while having a PTSD episode.

Where was Steve? Tony had never been able – he'd never, ever wanted Pepper to see him like this, had never even wanted to be in the same room as her when he'd gotten like this, because she – she put up with so much of his shit, she didn't deserve that. But Steve was all about protecting the weak, or whatever that was, and he – he'd been through a war, he'd understand the symptoms of PTSD. Not that Pepper wouldn't, but she'd know in the same way that Tony had known. Before.

Fuck. This was not Afghanistan – he was further from Afghanistan than he'd even been, literally – well, depending on which dimensions counted as contributing to distance. This was Asgard – theAsgard, the one where all the brains of a bunch of pan-dimensional aliens were stored. He had to pull himself together.

A sharp knock at the door nearly sent him to pieces again. Tony flinched off of the couch, by accident, but managed – albeit not so gracefully – to turn it into a roll to his feet. He wanted his armour, damn it, screw being responsible, he should have just climbed right in. Shit. But the door creaked open – JARVIS's voice cut off immediately – and it was just Steve. Steve, wearing different clothes (a bit more Asgardian in style; Steve, however, had the physique to pull it off) and a hunted look.

"Tony!" he exclaimed, shutting the door carefully behind him and then bounding closer with long strides. "Oh thank god."

"What's up, Cap?" Tony asked, forcing his hands down. At some point he'd raised his hands, like his boxing skills would do any good against an Asgardian. Trying for casual, he stuck them in his pockets.

"How long have you been here?" Steve asked instead of answering. There was a demanding note of real fear there.

"Uh – " Tony's mind blanked. Shit. How long had he been here? He never had any idea of how long panic attacks lasted; usually he just came back to himself in his workshop and JARVIS told him – or he could estimate by how much new stuff he'd invented during the blackout. Without external cues – he glanced at the fireplace, but it looked exactly the same as when he'd entered. Did that mean it had only been a few minutes, or was the fire more alien tech? "An hour?" he guessed weakly.

"Time is weird in this place," Steve said, moving up to stand beside him. Something in Tony relaxed, slightly – he had Captain America right beside him. He was safe – or, well, safer, at least. "It's been a couple of hours, for me, though I blinked out once, but when I left my room..." he gestured back toward the door. "Things had changed. I ran into Thor, and he was older, but he told me that the feast is still scheduled for tonight. I saw something that looked like a clock, though, and it hadn't moved at all. It feels like a funhouse version of the Asgard I know."

"Pan-dimensional aliens," Tony reminded him. "Time could be... pretty wonky, how they view it."

"We should stick together," Steve declared with a frown. "I don't want to – if we get separated, we might not be able to find each other again. It took me long enough to find you this time."

"Sounds smart," Tony agreed. "I guess I should put the armour back on, too." He was proud of how casually he managed to say that – as if he wasn't feeling a rush of relief at having the barest excuse.

"Yeah, I don't think they'll mind – armour seems to be regular clothing around here," Steve said, taking a look at the assembly in the corner. "Hey, they repowered it for you." He sounded relieved by that.

"Yeah, it's still got battle damage, but it'll do," Tony said, pulling out a grin as he walked toward it. There were a few bits that were damaged too badly to auto-assemble; no point making the thing fly around when it couldn't show off properly.

"It's... really big," Steve said, staring at it. "I mean, I knew it was bulkier, but... this is a lot."

"Your me has a slimmer version?" Tony asked as he turned his back to it and held out his arms. JARVIS didn't need a verbal order to start assembling it around him, and it was with some relief that he felt it latch on.

"The most recent versions, yeah," Steve shrugged. "And he – well, anyway," he broke off awkwardly, and Tony wondered what he'd been about to say. "He used to have to cart it around in a van."

"I have a version that folds down into a suitcase," Tony offered, "But it's got a lot of other things stripped out. Has to, to get it that small – and the protection's a lot more iffy. I can make materials engineers cry in awe, but at the end of the day thicker plating still matters."

Steve shook his head and said with a small smile, "Your armour's pretty incredible no matter the world."

Tony felt himself preen as the helmet locked into place, and then he had to spend a few moments manually setting the right leg and the lower right torso into alignment so that it could properly lock. When it was all in place, he had JARVIS do a quick check that systems were working at the maximum that they could manage – about 91% of optimum, which was okay; he wouldn't start running into serious problems flying until he lost at least 20% of them, and even then that was only if the 20% most critical went first. Then he took off the helmet and tucked it under his arm.

"Well, I'm ready," Tony said. His eyes caught on Steve's empty hands, and he grimaced sympathetically. "No luck getting them to conjure a shield for you?"

"I didn't ask." Steve shook his head. "It wouldn't be the same. Come on."