So this is really short. It's pretty much all I can write before I finish some world-building I have yet to fully explore, but it does move the story along, so I'm posting it.
On the plus side, there's this place called Mister Donut, which serves coffee and American-ish style donuts until ten at night, so the chances of said world building happening soon are fairly high. Also, completely irrelevant but (to me) awesome, I got to help pull one of these: .
Coulson sighs, leaning his chin on the back of the chair he's sitting on. If Bruce had, last night, led a stumbling, cried out Tony Stark to Rogers' room, Coulson didn't see. And if Rogers had spend the night humming soft, soothing songs over Tony's tired, shaken self, Coulson didn't hear. And if Rogers hasn't let Tony out of his sight the entire morning, Coulson hasn't mentioned it.
Tonys toes curl when he's in pain. Coulson hasn't seen a lot of that recently, but Tony keeps wincing and holding his shoulder, and he's half asleep on the couch with Thor and Clint, his head on Clint's lap, Thor sitting on the floor in front of the couch, and his toes are curling. Clint's hand is rubbing in absent repetition on Tony's arm, up and down, like at some point he was trying to comfort, and is now just continuing because he never saw any reason to stop.
Apparently the modifications on the suit weren't enough to keep it from hurting.
Coulson stands in the center of the hastily rebuilt portal, this time with a single metallic disk on the floor, in place of the twisted wreckage that had been the cables. Loki was standing, barely, leaning very heavily on a desk. Tony had insisted that no-one touch him during the event, but Thor had carried him in piggy-back to the lab, and Banner had stood beside him, until this point.
The activation is much less eventful, this time around. The glow starts, grows, and opens, and while Loki is on his knees, it's pretty clearly more that he could barely stay on his feet once he let go of the desk, than that the actual opening is taking too much of his power.
The first thing Coulson sees are sparks and stars, blinding head radiating from each small explosion, burning hot against his skin, small droplets of fire landing across his cheeks and nose and eyes. Rolling away, only white, hard ground greeted him, stretching on into infinity. On his other side a decrepit black tower rose as high as the plain stretched out. Around its base, where Coulson sat were corroded dark metal huts, many of the roofs caved in, the one nearest Coulson being sliced through like butter by a tall, angular emthing/em, its strange, lanky limbs throwing sparks as they cut through the crumpled structure.
On the other side of the thing, in the dim, red light, he can just make out the dark shapes of the others, though only five are up. He stands, and walks to the group, cautiously avoiding the strange things–creatures, or machines, he isn't sure.
Loki is trying to get up from his hands and knees, Thor helping. Tony is handing Banner the disk to store in his bag. Natasha is steadying a queasy looking Clint. Steve is standing, staring up at the tower, "Tony, I thought you said it was underground."
"Their current location is," explains Thor, "this was their city, before their civilization collapsed. They were left to crawl underground, and live in their own filth."
"Why did it collapse?" asks Natasha, frowning.
"Their ambition exceeded their powers."
"What d-does that mean?"
"They tried to merge their realm with another, break the walls between the realms. It is not something that is advisable to attempt. Their powers were greatly warped, and broken, by the energy flowing through the broken barriers. They were like those of Asgard, before. Now they are wretches, who cower, broken and disgusting and longing for the power of others, power they once possessed."
Coulon thinks it's probably a good thing that Loki is so out of it, for that speech. The god had collapsed, Thor had lifted him easily, carrying him gently in his arms like a small child. The plan, at this point, is strictly recognizance, and that will not be helped by Thor, Loki, Tony, or Bruce. Coulson isn't leaving two of those four unsupervised, so he's staying, while Natasha and Clint break in, and find out what's going on below, and Steve follows behind in case there's trouble.
Thor sits on the hard ground, shifting his brother, to cradle his upper body in his lap, gently smoothing his hair. Tony stands over them, faceplate still in place, but does ask, "has he sp...spoken to you?"
"About what he attempted? No, he has not. However, when I was watching over him, he did ask when he was nearly slumbering, whether I cared for him, after all he had done. It was a strange question. I do not know why he thought I would not."
"Because he doesn't understand why you would."
"He is my brother. I love him."
"You aren't actually his brother," remarks Bruce.
"I am in all ways that should bear any weight on our hearts."
"Maybe he doesn't understand that," Bruce explains.
"I have told him."
"Maybe teh...tell him again. When he w-wakes."
"I shall."
"Maybe you should tell him it isn't okay to try to kill yourself." Coulson is a bit surprised, at how angry the words are, coming out of his own mouth.
Bruce turns to look at him, "I couldn't stop him, if he really wanted to die. All I could do was not judge him, give him a safe person to talk to. Something you clearly wouldn't have done."
"You could have told someone with training."
"In talking a God down from willing himself into unbeing? Really, does SHEILD offer a course in that? Because sign me up if it does..."
"I'm just not sure someone with the view you have on the matter should have been the person to talk to him."
"Because I understand where he's coming from?"
"Stuh."
They all look at Tony, who has retracted the faceplate, and is glaring at both of them, "stop. Bruce might n-not be th-the best p-person...but he d-d-did wuh-what..." Tony takes a breath, keeps going, "he thought w–was right. And I'm n-not sure he was wruh...wrong. The situation ch-changed because of w-what L-L-Loki d-did. Not b-because anyone else c-could change L-Loki's mind."
Coulson notices that Tony is staring to look kind of pale, which is probably a clue as to why his speech is getting worse even though he seems calmer, "is your shoulder okay?"
"It's fine. You, though, need t-to st-stop."
It occurs to Coulson, that this is the first time Tony has sided against him. After a moment's consideration, he realizes that is probably because it's the first time Coulson has taken a side, not been the impartial observer, been part of the argument. And, stranger, is that he did it without a second thought, and neither Bruce nor Tony seem to have even noticed the change, much less found it surprising.
"He is waking."
They all stop, and look, at Thor gently setting his brother on the ground, kneeling beside him as he starts to stir.