Sorry for taking so long! Spent the first bit of the holidays away, then sick and now in the hospital for the past week and to be honest, I'm still on painkillers while writing this, so if there's any nonsense in this chapter that desperately needs correcting, please don't hesitate to tell me.
That being said, I do hope you enjoy this (once again belated) chapter and I hope to be back on my feet properly soon so I can get more writing done!
For a few seconds, Tony literally just stood frozen in place and stared incredulously, even as Thor had already grabbed Loki and jumped out of the quinjet again. By the time he pulled himself together, the blue-clad man stood in front of him, looking both wary and concerned, and...
"Captain America?" Tony blurted out incredulously, because Jesus Christ, his hallucinations were going too far on this one. "Okay, whatever. Big fan. Gotta go." He stepped backwards, wrenching the helmet back on as he dropped down from the hatch despite the protests behind him.
No, no, no. This was all wrong. What the hell was going on here? Maybe he really was seeing things again, but he hadn't been using the potion for a year now, although sometimes the temptation had been great to take another dose just to see whether he was going to 'meet' Loki again, projected by his subconscious.
But this here? He didn't get this at all. What in God's name was Loki doing here?
Phrasing this differently, how was Loki alive? No, still not right. How was Loki alive for a fucking year without saying a word, without giving any sign while Tony had been grieving his heart out stuck up in Asgard, and now had the guts to turn up on Midgard of all places?
Earth, it's fucking Earth, Tony corrected himself angrily while he fired up the thrusters to balance out his rapid flight downwards. Angrily? Or just very, very confused? He didn't know anymore, seeing Loki had felt like a punch to the stomach, like being turned upside down. Forget about genius, he wasn't keeping up with this anymore.
It took him a moment to spot the brothers, who were arguing on top of some rock formation, Thor with Mjölnir in his hand, raised threateningly. Tony headed straight towards them and realised too late that he wasn't going to be able to slow down in time – in his defence, he had only flown this suit once before, he was still getting used to it. With an almost startled cry, he knocked Thor over and scrambled to get to his feet and away from the god before he could think about making use of Mjölnir.
"Sorry, your Highness," he apologised quickly, then flipped his faceplate up to look at Loki, who regarded them with a sort of distant amusement. "And as for you – what, Loki? Just – what? Care to explain any of this?" He stood between the siblings, uncertain whether he wanted to kiss Loki or punch him in the face. Maybe both. Both sounded good.
Still with that little smirk playing around his lips, Loki cocked his head, too-long hair falling over his shoulder and unsettling blue eyes fixed on Tony. "Oh, look at that," he drawled, "little Anthony all up and standing on his own feet."
Punch him. Definitely punch him.
"No thanks to you," Tony snapped, which maybe was unfair, okay, but Loki wasn't being exactly tactful either. "Where the hell have you been?"
The small smile vanished, a cold, distant expression taking its place. "Making friends," the fallen prince responded, his voice flat and unreadable.
"Making friends," Tony repeated incredulously. "I can't believe you. You were gone for almost a year, I'm saying it again, where the fuck have you been? I'm glad to see that you seem to find this so incredibly funny, but frankly, I don't quite get the humour. Care to let me in on the joke?"
Thor cut in again before his brother could answer: "This is hardly the time for your petty quarrel. Loki, where is it?"
"Petty quarrel?" the inventor echoed, sputtering. "Sorry, have you missed the part where Loki apparently was alive during the past year and didn't deem it necessary to tell anyone? Does that bother you? No? Just me, then." He threw his arms up. "Oh, fantastic. What a reunion. I'm sorta missing the violins in the background." Babbling, he was babbling, but he didn't know what else to do. In a matter of minutes, he felt like his world had been twisted inside out again – he had planned to go home, sort himself out, get his old life back under control as well as he could manage, but no, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?
Loki spread his arms, still with that false little smile playing around his lips as he replied: "You need the cube to bring me home, but I sent it off, I know not where." He looked so damn smug, so incredibly pleased with himself, that Tony was partly tempted to just watch this play out. Apparently, he was the only one who had no idea what exactly was going on here.
"Now listen to me, brother –"
"You're arrested, all of you," another voice cut in, distinctly American.
"Thank god," Tony sighed, which earned him a confused glance from the man clambering up the side of the rock formation they had been arguing on. The inventor cocked his head, eyes narrowed, while he regarded him. "Are you the real deal, by the way? Gotta explain that trick to me sometime. What did they do, clone you? Or did they find another blond with a killer jawline? Nice uniform, by the way, love the retro look."
With every word, the confusion of maybe-Captain-America in front of him seemed to grow, increasing together with Tony's confidence. He knew that look from people he had talked to, even if it was long ago; he'd been used to getting looks of irritation up to utter disbelief when he had his public outings, and although he would admit that he hadn't been exactly mature just these two years ago, this kind of attention still felt better than what he got as the servant boy on Asgard. He was used to people not being able to follow what he was saying.
"Yeah," the figure replied just a little belatedly, "I'm the 'real deal'. They got me out of the ice a few weeks ago. And agent Coulson thought a little 'retro' might be reassuring in the current situation." While he spoke, the quinjet approached, hovering above them and causing a draft of air that caught in Thor's cape and made it flutter around him.
Tony raised an eyebrow and echoed, "the current situation?", however, the hatch of the quinjet opened and the Captain forewent his question for the moment to extend an arm towards its inside. He had to be aware that he would never be able to beat the three of them in a fight, but he still managed to look authoritative when he extended an arm towards the small, hovering plane and said, not really a question: "Do you mind?"
The inventor raised his hands in protest. "Oh no, no, we're just here to collect him," he said, nodding towards Loki. "No need to arrest anybody. We'll be –"
"Actually," Loki cut in smoothly, taking a step away from Thor, "that is not quite true. Didn't they tell you anything, Anthony?"
"When did you get so damn patronising?" Tony snapped at him. True, he'd been sort of Loki's pupil back on Asgard, if you could call it that, but he'd never heard the god sound like that, not when he'd addressed Tony. There'd always been fondness, at the very beginning at least curiosity, but that... patronising, belittling tone had never been a part of the whole thing. This Loki was so disturbingly wrong in so many ways.
The inventor took a deep breath and folded his arms as well as was possible inside the suit as he continued: "And actually, no. Nobody is telling me fucking anything. I bet I wouldn't even be here to ask stupid questions if it was Thor's decision, no offence, your Highness, so if anyone would mind telling me why exactly I'm being arrested by Captain America himself, I'd be most grateful. I mean, while it's certainly an experience, it wasn't exactly on my bucket list. There. I asked. Happy now?"
Loki had his head tilted to one side and regarded him with a sort of silent amusement that was absolutely unsettling, just like the way that his bright blue eyes (wrong, wrong, wrong) were fixed on Tony like he was contemplating something that he didn't care to share with the world.
He might be repeating himself, but this was not the reunion that Tony had expected or wished for.
"Get in the plane and we'll explain everything else," the Captain said, now with a warning undertone to his voice, and Tony met Thor's eyes.
"Sounds like a deal to me," he commented and while he hoped that the Asgardian wouldn't be stupid enough to say it out loud, he was fairly sure that Thor was aware that even Captain America, even with support from whoever his pilot was, wasn't going to be able to stop them if they decided to cut the trip short. Three Aesir (because he counted as an Aesir now, after all, plus he had the support of his armour) were more than a match even for someone with the blond man's superhuman strength. They could always leave if things went south.
Thor returned his gaze for a few seconds, then nodded and agreed in his deep, rumbling voice: "Very well. We shall accompany you, Captain."
Relieved that that had gone so smoothly, Tony nodded and took it on himself to go first. He didn't like having to wait for the thunderer's agreement, but he was aware that the prince would be a lot happier if they just let him take the lead and he wasn't going to make this situation even more complicated by pissing Thor off more than was absolutely necessary. He had learned to keep his head down.
The pilot twisted in her seat to greet him and while Tony had seen his share of goddesses during his time on Vanaheim, he had to admit she was stunning. Red curls framed her pale face, reaching down almost to her shoulders, she had full lips and the look she levelled him with from her green eyes was intense. She introduced herself as agent Romanov and was about to turn back towards the consoles when he replied: "Tony Stark, nice to meet you." She froze for a second and then turned back, a glint of recognition in her eyes.
"Tony Stark?" she repeated and he set the helmet aside, spreading his arms as he grinned widely. So his name still rung bells on Midgard.
"The one and only," he replied. "News flash. Not dead."
"It would seem so," she agreed slowly. "Alright, don't tell me now, you'll be questioned on the Helicarrier. I won't be answering any questions before that either."
"I guess that sounds fair enough," Tony sighed – oh, he didn't like it, but he did understand her reasoning. Besides, he didn't fancy telling his story (or what of it he was going to tell whomever she worked for because he sure as hell wasn't going to reveal everything) several times, so it was probably easiest if they got it done in one go.
Thor had taken a seat next to Loki and the Captain had sat down on the god's other side while Tony had been speaking with their pilot, so he strapped himself into the seat opposite the younger prince and leaned back against the wall as much as possible while wearing the suit.
He met Loki's eyes – that blue colour was driving him insane, he had loved Loki's expressive green eyes and now they just seemed... cold, staring out of a face that looked even paler than usual. There were dark circles underneath them and they carried a haunted expression, no matter how much Loki tried to appear distant and superior, that Tony recognised because he had seen it too many times when he'd looked into a mirror in the morning.
Loki looked like he'd been tortured.
He was skinnier than usual, too; he'd always been lean, not as muscled as Thor or the others, but there'd been a strength to his frame that looked different from the wiry state he was now in.
What happened to you? Tony was sure the question was obvious without speaking it, but the challenging gleam stayed in Loki's eyes. He wasn't going to speak first and Tony didn't want to ask with the others around. He'd have time for that later because he sure as hell wasn't going to let Loki off again that easily. He had still trouble believing that the prince was here, alive and – maybe not well. But alive.
The ride was spent mostly in silence. Agent Romanov briefly explained the function of SHIELD to them without mentioning what that had to do with Loki, although she did drop a hint that they had dealt with Thor during his brief stay on Midgard, but apart from that, she kept to herself and so did everyone else; the atmosphere was too tense to start up any sort of casual conversation, however much Tony wondered how the hell they had gotten Captain America here, assuming the man actually was the real deal and not just some sort of really good clone. He seemed to have missed some things during his time away.
Tony hoped that SHIELD was taking in Loki because they had some sort of policy about extraterrestrials. Maybe they needed to be registered. Maybe there was even going to be a greeting. A welcome committee, that sort of thing.
Somehow, he didn't quite believe that it was all that simple.
Since nobody told him anything though, even Thor remaining in stony silence, he settled in for the wait and continued his staring contest with Loki, who didn't seem inclined to share anything either.
That was not how Tony had imagined them meeting again. He'd freely admit that he had entertained the thought – Loki was nothing but resourceful and it was unlikely, sure, but during lonely nights when sleep wouldn't come, Tony had tried to imagine ways for the prince to return. Obviously, that hadn't been as unrealistic as he believed, however, their 'reunion' was nothing like he had pictured it. Something was really, really wrong here, apparently wrong enough that the information wasn't to be disclosed to him. Fucking fantastic.
Time stretched like old bubble gum until Romanov finally announced that they had reached their destination and Loki broke away from the inventor's gaze as he was pulled up and out of his chair by the Captain.
"Welcome to SHIELD," their pilot said after the quinjet had set down and the hatch began to move down, inch by inch giving way to daylight on top of...
"Whoa," Tony made, honestly impressed. "This is not bad. Not bad at all." He was looking out on something that looked like the landing deck of a plane carrier, but it was easily the biggest Tony had ever seen. And he'd seen quite some of those. "I'm aware that I've been... away for a bit, but this isn't standard now, is it?"
"Far from it," Romanov answered, stepping out on the hatch beside him. "And you haven't even seen the best part yet." She looked up at him (oh, she was tiny) with a smirk, the sort of expression someone would wear when they saw a small child getting excited over a new toy.
Well, in his defence, Tony had every reason to be excited. This looked amazing.
"Oh? So what's the best part?" he enquired curiously.
She threw her hair back over her shoulder and left the quinjet with smooth strides, calling back at him: "You're gonna see it fly."
Tony was about to reply something as he followed with loud, clunky steps, but he forgot about that when he saw a squadron of black-clad soldiers approaching Loki and snapping shackles around his wrists. What the hell was going on here?
"Hey, is that really necessary?" he demanded as he caught up with the red-head.
She raised an eyebrow at him, then looked over towards Loki. "You really do know nothing, do you?" she asked, sounding almost pitiful.
"You might as well call me Jon Snow," the inventor responded, rolling his eyes sharply. "No, as I said, I have no idea what the fuck is going on and nobody bothered to tell me so far. But I'm telling you, whatever is going on, I'm sure Loki can be able to help."
"I don't think so," she cut him off, suddenly cold. "If you would just wait for the briefing, Mr Stark."
"Oh for – alright, forget it." He threw his arms up, ignoring the looks he was getting from all around them. "So before that briefing of yours, do you maybe have somewhere I can store the suit? I'd rather not walk around in it full-time, especially not if I'm going to sit through a briefing."
Romanov looked up at him for a moment, then touched the comm in her ear. "Director, I brought a surprise."
#
Tony left the suit in a storage room and took the liberty to reset the codes for the entrance before he put it on lock-down. Even though it was unlikely that anybody here was going to be able to operate the armour, he was always better off safe than sorry.
After a short hesitation, he also left Loki's tunic neatly folded next to the suit. Running around with an unnecessary layer of clothing would look ridiculous, not to mention that Thor would most likely recognise the garment.
"Okay then, here we are," he said in a way of greeting as he entered what seemed to be the control room of the ship (Helicarrier, as Romanov had called it). Some heads turned his way, then back to their monitors and Tony felt a pang of amusement when they suddenly snapped back with a mixture of incredulity and recognition – he had regularly been on the front page of pretty much every American magazine for ages, two years were surely not enough to completely forget him.
The one who caught his eye, however, was a tall, bald man with dark skin who turned around with a dramatic swirl of his leather coat (he had totally practised that) to fix Tony with a stare from his one good eye. For a moment, Tony held his gaze, then the man turned towards Romanov who was seated at a glass table with Thor and the Captain.
"And you checked he's not a clone, yeah?"
Tony snorted. "Funny, I was going to ask the same thing about your Captain America. Which museum did you find him in?"
The man in the leather coat looked back at him and stated with dry sarcasm: "Forget what I said. That is Stark. Which leaves the question of how you are here."
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" Tony asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Nick Fury, director of SHIELD," came the immediate reply. Oh dear, top brass. "Also the founder of the Avengers Initiative."
"Which is...?" the inventor prodded. "Sorry, I'm not quite up to date on the latest charity clubs, if you'll excuse that. Didn't get the Sun where I was."
"And where would that be?" the director inquired, ignoring Tony's own question.
He raised his eyebrows at the taller man. "I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours. Or rather that of the little gang here." He gestured behind him.
It followed another moment of silence during which Tony tried not to squirm under the surprisingly intense look from Fury's one eye, then the director nodded and made a gesture for him to take a seat at the conference table before he pulled up a digital file on the glass surface.
"You've got some reading to do, Mr Stark," he said. "Better hurry up, the last member of the team ought to be back from the lab in about five minutes."
"Not a problem," Tony muttered, already engrossed in the file before him. It was complete with video clips and descriptions of all the five members of this Avengers Initiative of the director's and apparently, Tony had missed quite a bit while he'd taken his trip through the galaxy. The Initiative didn't seem fully formed yet, but the file listed people who were considered for one reason or another.
Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America. Yeah, he'd met that one. Apparently, they had pulled him out of the ice where his plane had landed – so he really, actually was the real deal. Well, if that wasn't something.
Robert Bruce Banner, Hulk. Tony frowned. He definitely knew that name, the man had written some impressive papers while the inventor had still been around, but he didn't see how he qualified for an Initiative like that. That was until he caught sight of the giant on the video clip. Oh dear.
Thor Odinson, Thor. Ha. Yeah, well, nothing new here. He'd come into contact with SHIELD during his first stay on Earth, as Tony had suspected, and with the current situation, he was apparently an asset that they would like to have on their side.
Natasha Romanov, Black Widow. So there was something more to the red-headed pilot than just the ability to fly a plane. From the way she moved, Tony had suspected something like that, plus no normal pilot ran around in a leather suit like that.
Clinton Francis Barton, Hawkeye. He hadn't seen that one around, but his file certainly looked impressive – he was the first one who appeared to be... well, normal. Even Romanov had started her 'career' as a kid already, and while the file didn't disclose any personal information, it didn't seem like Barton had started working for SHIELD until he was an adult.
"A merry little gang of weirdoes with powers," Tony muttered to himself, chuckling. Even the two agents, who were probably the most normal possible members, appeared to be far above the level of the average secret agent. If there was such a thing as an average secret agent, that was.
He looked up at the other residents of the table, intending to ask why it was that they had actually been called together, but he got the answer as he saw that Romanov had pulled up a screen of her own and leaned over it. Tony quickly got up and walked around the table to stand next to her when he spotted Loki on the picture, looking around in a round glass prison with mild interest while Fury stood in front of him, working the control panel.
"You get how that works. Ant – boot."
Tony clenched his fingers on the back of Romanov's chair as he leaned over her, not wanting to miss a single word. Maybe he would finally learn what the hell was going on here – so far, he didn't like it one bit.
"It's an impressive cage," Loki was saying with an infuriating little smirk playing around his lips. "Not built, I think, for me."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury retorted.
Romanov looked up and Tony followed her eyes, spotting the curly-haired man standing behind another chair who had his arms crossed almost defensively and looked distinctly uncomfortable in his skin. He seemed to feel Tony's eyes on him and met his gaze – Tony gave him a smile that seemed to surprise the scientist, but he focussed back on the screen too quickly to properly see Banner's reaction. He'd talk to the man later, definitely, but right now, he needed to find out what was up with Loki.
"Oh, I've heard. The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man," Loki sneered and from the corner of his eye, Tony could see Banner flinch. The pictures from the file flashed in his mind and he grimaced in sympathy. Loki had always had a talent for hitting sore spots. "How desperate are you to call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I?" Fury repeated. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and kill cause it's fun – you've made me very desperate." Tony forgot to breathe for a moment. He hadn't liked this from the beginning, but this? He glanced around the table for explanation, but the others were all too focussed on their screens to notice him. "You might not be glad that you did."
"Oh," Loki made as if he had suddenly come to understand something. "It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share and then to be reminded what real power is."
There was a pause with the fallen prince's words echoing through the room, then Fury responded: "Well, let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."
The feed cut out when the director turned to leave the room and it hung over them all heavily; Tony stared at where the screen had been with wide eyes as he tried to keep his shock from showing. He needed to know what had happened, now more than ever.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner remarked eventually.
"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" the Captain demanded now that the spell seemed to be broken.
Thor, who had been staring down at the table where the video feed had been, looked up to meet the other's eyes. "He has an army," he said.
"Okay, stop." Tony straightened himself, spread his arms. "I've been playing this guessing game long enough, I think I deserve to know what's going on. Even you know more than I do, Thor, and we've arrived here together. Is it so much to ask for to know what the fuck is going wrong here?!" The last bit had been yelled and the thunderer glared as he turned towards the inventor.
"You would do well to know your place, Anthony," he snapped and Tony could feel the surprised glances of the others on him, but he was fed up with the bullshit here.
"I know my place," he hissed, rounding the table to approach Thor. "This is my world, this is where you are the guest and not me."
"You are not one of them any longer," the god reminded him and Tony clenched his fists. He did not want to have this discussion in front of the others, but he wasn't going to cower in front of Thor because of that.
"Maybe I'm not," he agreed, "but I'm not one of yours either, am I? I'm not on Asgard, Thor, you can't tell me what to do, not here. I'm in on this as much as you are, so fucking tell me what the hell is going on!"
He gritted his teeth, refusing to flinch under the prince's glare. After a few seconds, Thor turned away and for a moment, Tony thought he was going to ignore him, but then he explained, directed at the whole group: "That army I was speaking of, they are called the Chitauri. They are from another world – not Asgard, but a different realm unknown to us. Loki wants to lead them into battle against you, I presume as a payment for the Tesseract."
"An army. From space." Rogers' incredulous voice sounded distant and Tony could feel himself growing pale, fingers clenching around the seat he was standing behind. God, no, this was wrong on so many levels. He couldn't – this couldn't be right, this wasn't Loki. Thor had to know that, right? He'd grown up with the black-haired god, he would see that this was nothing like him.
Banner joined in: "That means he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor repeated with a frown.
Tony tried to follow the conversation – he couldn't have a panic attack, not here, not now. Not in front of them. He needed to figure this out, he needed to know what was behind all this because there was something they were missing, there had to be.
With half a mind, he listened and learned that Loki was brainwashing people – could that be what had happened to him? The strange blue colour of his eyes returned to Tony's mind as he swallowed.
"That guy's brain is a bag full of cats," Banner said somewhere. "You could smell crazy on him."
Tony's head snapped up, but before he could say something, Thor had stepped forward and warned: "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days," Romanov interjected and Tony felt sick. He needed to get out of here.
It didn't help that Thor hesitated and then added carefully: "He is adopted."
"Aren't you one hell of a loyal brother," Tony hissed venomously. He swallowed back the nausea burning in his throat and tried to call up on the resolve that had brought him through the past few months. He hadn't given up then, he wasn't going to let this beat him. He was going to find out how this could happen, but before that, he was going to stop Loki.
Stop Loki. It felt so wrong to even think that, but it was for the prince's best – he wasn't himself, Thor must have seen that, and they could stop this before it started and then figure out what was wrong, what was the source of the problem.
"This is something technical," Banner remarked as if he had read Tony's thoughts. "What does he need Iridium for? To build another portal?"
"How'd he get the Iridium in the first place?" Tony asked, determined to get his head back in the game. As much as he hated it, they needed to take care of the symptoms here and then they could move to the source of the problem – and he was certain that Loki was just another part of something bigger here.
Romanov replied: "Remember how I said he brainwashed one of us? That was agent Barton. They crashed a high class event in Stuttgart and, long story short, managed to get what they needed to get into the storage facility. I can get you the video feeds later."
"Please do," Tony nodded. "Barton? The Hawkeye fellow?"
He could see her tense. "Yes," she answered curtly. "The Hawkeye fellow."
"Alright," he nodded. "And you said he wanted to open another portal, so I'm assuming he came here through one, right?"
"He did," the agent confirmed. "It was a lot smaller than what he'd need, though, and collapsed right afterwards. No way he's getting an army through that."
"So he needs something to stabilise it," Tony mused, continuing the train of thought. "And the Tesseract is an incredibly strong source of energy, but nobody is sure how to really harness it. If Loki wants to start drawing from it's energy, he'll need a power source, a high energy density, something to basically kick-start the Cube. "
"How do you know that?" Banner asked with honest curiosity in his tone.
"I've done some reading while I was away," Tony responded non-committally, remembering the afternoons in the library with Loki while they were searching for something to replace the reactor that was poisoning him.
The Captain interrupted his thoughts by asking: "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Banner pointed out, and oh yes, Tony liked the man already.
Walking towards him, he took over: "That is, unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunneling effect. I'm not quite up to date on that, but wasn't he working on that a while ago?"
"He was," the other scientist confirmed. "And if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
By now, Tony had rounded the table and stretched his hand out to Banner, who shook it in a dry, firm grip as Tony exclaimed: "Finally, somebody who speaks English. You know, doctor Banner, had anybody told me that you'd be here, I would have fixed my hair. Are you still writing those amazing papers about anti-electron collisions? Oh, and I've seen the file. The, you know, green rage monster thing is awesome, too."
The scientist chuckled awkwardly, muttering his thanks, and his eyes flicked over Tony's attire – he was still wearing the Asgardian clothing, it wasn't like he'd had much time to change, and the inventor remembered that when he had left Midgard, his hair had always been cut relatively short. Now, it was long enough that he kept it tied with a leather band on the back of his head so it wouldn't fall into his eyes. Plus, there was the scar on his cheek that he'd grown so used to by now; he really didn't look much like the man who had sold weapons here just a few years ago.
"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury said, striding into the room. Again with the dramatic leather coat thing. He had totally practised that in front of a mirror.
"Well," Tony said loudly to the room at large, "I'll need a computer, maybe a lab, then I might be able to help you with all this."
"I've got a lab," Banner told him. "Plus I have the sceptre that Loki used to brainwash Barton and Selvig."
"And you're telling me that now?" Tony demanded. "We need to work on the communications here, honestly. Anyway, is there anything you lot need me for or can I go and do science?"
"Actually," Romanov said, "I think we would all like to know how exactly you came to be here. You were proclaimed dead ages ago."
The inventor crossed his arms and rested them on the back of a chair, trying to go for nonchalance. "It's sort of a long story," he said and she cocked her head, green eyes fixing him with a look that seemed to see right through him. Had they met under other circumstances, Tony was sure she would have gotten along fantastically with Loki.
Before she could ask about his cryptic phrasing, Thor supplied: "Anthony is my brother's personal slave."
Tony flinched. Yes, thank you Thor, that's helping, he thought sarcastically. He needed these people to trust him if he was supposed to work with them. "Again, I'm not a slave anymore, Thor," he snapped. "And I –"
"So you were a slave, yes?" Romanov interrupted. Her voice was perfectly level and Tony met her eyes to try and get a read on her, but her expression gave nothing away. Fury stood a few steps behind her, silent but watching with interest.
With a glare towards Thor, he admitted: "I was. But Loki wasn't like that, he would never – he didn't act like my other..." Owners, he thought, but couldn't bring himself to say the word. Instead, he finished lamely: "It's not as bad as it sounds."
She had her forearms on the table now, leaning in his direction as she inquired: "He wasn't holding you prisoner, then."
"No, of course not!" Tony protested. What right did she even have to ask? It didn't concern her what had happened to him.
"So if you had asked to go home, he would have let you, yes?" she prodded further. Tony took a small step back, fingers drumming nervously on his arm.
Loki leaning over his desk, Freyja's letter in his hand, after Tony had told him that the materials he needed were back on Earth. "You could have thought of something better, couldn't you? I am not letting you go, Anthony."
"Not... as such..." he replied slowly. "But he never – you need to understand this, he wasn't... this isn't how he normally is, he's not a bad person. There needs to be something behind this, he never did anything that..."
"Mr Stark," she cut him off, her voice soft, almost scarily gentle, "do you know what the 'Stockholm Syndrome' is?"
Tony laughed incredulously, although it sounded almost hysterical even to his own ears. "Come on, don't be ridiculous. I don't – that's not even the question here, is it? This is about Loki, not me, so drop it. It's none of your business." He bit his tongue before he could say anything more and rocked back on his heels. His heart was pounding in his throat and he was digging his fingers into his arms hard enough to hurt even through the tunic to hide the shaking of his hands.
Romanov, however, wasn't done yet. "What kind of services does personal slave entail? Assuming you were one once?"
"I said stop it!" Tony snapped, louder than he had intended. "If you're asking if Loki– he didn't, alright? He never did anything against my will, he never – he just didn't, okay?"
"He didn't keep you in Asgard against your will either?"
Tony was aware that he was breathing too quickly; his vision was greying out, becoming Aesir had done nothing against panic attacks. No matter what he said now, she was going to twist it around and use it against him; forget court, this was so much worse.
"I think you've had your fun now," he managed shakily. "If you'll excuse me."
With that, he turned on his heel and fled the room in the direction he had come from (he heard a chair scraping over the floor and someone muttering "let him calm down"), down a hallway and past the agents that barely paid any attention to him, minding their own business. Unlike their red-headed colleague. The adrenaline in his veins screamed at him to run, but he couldn't risk that – there weren't as many people about as he had expected, but still, running would make him look suspicious and he couldn't use that right now.
When he could sort of breathe again, he paid more attention to his surroundings, slowing down his pace so it looked more like he was purposefully searching for something than fleeing. When he spotted an agent leaving a room labelled Surveillance, not too far from where he had started out, he slipped past him through the door before it could slide shut completely.
One thing about secret bases was that the people were so full of themselves they didn't believe for a second that someone could be there who didn't belong – or in Tony's case, what would someone with that clothing do with a computer?
"Bingo," he whispered when he found himself in a room devoid of people, the walls lit up with screens and various security feeds from all over the Helicarrier. In one picture, he could spot Romanov holding doctor Banner back with a hand on his arm; the scientist was looking in the direction Tony had disappeared to.
Another screen showed Loki, pacing his cell restlessly. Tony stared at the image for a few seconds, the approached one of the keyboards and went to work.
Ten minutes later, he left the room, his hands no longer shaking and the panic attack that had been threatening to overtake him pushed to the back of his mind. He had something to concentrate on now, something to distract him from the uncomfortable feeling that Romanov's questions had stirred up.
Stockholm Syndrome. Ha.
With a shake of his head, he rounded another corner and entered a corridor with two guards standing on either sides of the door at its end.
"Excuse me," he called out as he approached them. "I've been sent in to talk to the prisoner. We were friends back up there, they thought he might tell me something."
The two guards, a man and a woman, exchanged a brief glance before she spoke up: "We weren't told about anyone coming in, I'll have to check that with the director."
Tony sighed, coming to a halt in front of her. "Sure, go ahead." As soon as she took one hand of her weapon to reach for the comm unit in her ear, he surged forward and wrenched the rifle out of her hand, spinning to hit the back of her head with it before he aimed at the second guard. He looked ridiculously young and had jumped, startled, but was now pointing his own gun at Tony with a determined expression. "Down, boy," Tony commanded almost gently. "Even if you shoot faster than me, trust me, you're not going to stop me with one bullet."
Bless Fandral's hand-to-hand-training.
He wasn't actually going to shoot the kid, no way, but the threat seemed to work; slowly, the young agent crouched down to place his gun on the floor. As soon as his fingers left it, Tony knocked him out too and checked that he stayed down before he entered the code that he had found out by rewinding the security tape before. The door opened with a hiss and he threw the rifle down as he saw that it was empty safe for a glass cell.
"Hello, Loki," he greeted blankly as he skipped up the steps towards the control panel he had seen Fury use before. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the god turning in surprise.
"Anthony? What are you doing here?" For the first time, his voice almost sounded the way that Tony was used to. There was surprise in his tone and something almost reproachful, like he was going to tell him off for stepping out of line. Ha.
"I've put a loop in the security feed both in here and in the hallway so unless they've been keeping tabs on me the whole time, which I think they're too busy for, nobody should figure out where I am too quickly," he answered, eyes flickering over the controls.
"You didn't answer my question," Loki reminded him warily.
Tony rolled his eyes and then turned towards the prince, spreading his arms to indicate the room.
"What does it look like, you genius? I'm busting you out."