Chapter Thirteen

AN: Kinda a short chapter here :p

After the three of them had re-captured Loki again and brought him to the Helicarrier without any further interruptions, Thor and Tony met the rest of the team, minus Hawkeye, properly (Tony even had a moment to catch up with Coulson before this to ask how Pepper was). Tony knew SHIELD was up to something the moment he got involved in this- since when did they not have ulterior secret plans? So during the discussion the team had about how odd it was that Loki had given up too quickly, Tony had secretly hidden a device to hack into the systems.

The only member of their little team present that Tony hadn't met by this point was Doctor Bruce Banner, and Tony found himself quite interested in the man. Not the same kind of interest that he had in Loki though, but he could tell the two could become good friends. And he didn't annoy him, which was also a bonus.

They'd disappeared off into the hellicarrier's lab and started to track the Tesseract's signal, with Steve interrupting them to tell Tony off when he tried jabbing Bruce to get the Hulk out. The three had then discussed about what Tony already deduced about SHIELD, and after Tony had apparently annoyed him, Steve had left in a huff. The computer was still tracking and Jarvis's decoding was a little ways off from being done, so it was then that Tony had decided he couldn't put off Loki anymore. He had to see him.

After telling Bruce that he needed to take a leak, and thinking that if he complained he took too long, he'd say he was chatting an agent up, Tony had used Jarvis to hack into SHIELD's camera system and snuck in to see the god himself. He figured he could get away with looping the playback for about 10 minutes before SHIELD caught on, so he'd have to be quick.

When he arrived, Loki was standing with his back to him seemingly, in Tony's mind, unaware that he had entered. Tony stepped towards the glass cage and coughed in an attempt to gain his attention. "Loki."

"Hello, darling." Loki said without looking at him.

"I er..." Tony started, not quite sure where he was going with that sentence and tried another, in an attempt to get the conversation going. "How have you been?" He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

"Oh, absolutely marvellous. I'm at the top of the world and you Midgardians say." There was a short moment of silence before Loki spoke again. "The director has more than one set of electronic eyes and ears on us as we speak. So do I."

Tony frowned at the second part of that sentence and lowered his hand. "Well, I've disabled it all from SHIELD's point of view, but only for a bit. What do you mean you have?"

Loki smirked, but Tony couldn't see it. Loki had some surveillance too, but he wasn't about to tell Tony the details. "What are you doing here, Stark? Go home."

"What, over a year without me and you're not even acting like you missed me? I'm hurt." Tony smirked to himself, and then shook his head. "I came here to talk."

"I don't mean here I mean on this ship. Get out here, go back to Malibu."

Tony took a step back, feeling offended. "I don't live there currently... I live in New York. Loki, why are you being like this? I didn't have to come all this way to see you y'know, I could've just stayed with Pepper and had a fun night of celebrating the opening of my tower, but instead, I came all the way to Germany because I was told you were here."

Loki hung his head. "Please, New York isn't safe."

"I never said it was." Tony raised an eyebrow, even though Loki couldn't see. "What do you mean?"

Loki sighed, knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere with this approach. He stood and walked to Tony's side of the cage. "You need to be safe. So I can find you if I am able to return. And you are wrong." Loki put his hand up to the glass. "I did miss you."

Although Tony reciprocated the gesture, he still kept a confused expression on his face. "Loki... what's going on? Tell me... Maybe I can help?"

"I told you, I can't tell you."

Tony sighed and lowered his hand, looking Loki directly in the eyes. "I can see what you're doing. I haven't said anything to the others but... The things you're gathering, I know they're to make another portal. Why?"

Loki rested his forehead on the glass, feeling conflicted. "I can't tell you. Ignorance keeps you safe. Please, stay out of New York. Let my brother handle this. You will be no match for what may come if I fail."

"Dammit Loki!" Tony raised his voice, turning away from the glass cage and running his hands through his hair in frustration as he took a few steps away. "I can see you're not allowed to tell me, you're eyes are fucking blue and that's leading me to think you're under someone control or something. I don't know..." he trailed of, then turned around and walked back to the glass. "But I'm tied up in this now. You can't just tell me to leave, you have no right to say that after you left me!"

"Tony, please, I didn't want to leave. I didn't have a choice. Tony, look at me. TONY!"

Tony's head snapped up at the sound of how panicked Loki sounded as met his gaze which darted wildly to hold Tony's. He held them for a second then looked back down to his feet. "There's always a choice." He said quietly, though loud enough for Loki to hear him.

"Not if I wanted to live."

The room went quiet for a few seconds with neither saying a word, Tony looking down at the ground and Loki at Tony. Neither knew how to respond to that, seeing as Loki wasn't giving any more away, and Tony felt as if he had hardly any arguments left in him.

"It's that bad, huh?" Tony said finally, breaking the silence first. "Whoever has a hold over you, is strong enough to kill you if you don't do as they say?"

"I wouldn't have left you for less. Tony, there's something I've got to tell you."

"What's there left to say?" Tony asked, a little unkindly even though he didn't mean to say it like that.

Loki opened his mouth about to say something when he heard light footsteps the Tony didn't hear or didn't notice. "Someone's coming. Go." Loki turned around back to his original position so that it wouldn't show up in the security camera's loop.

Tony paused, only momentarily, then glanced in the direction of Loki and said, "I'm sorry, but I can't leave this battle, not now." Before he ran out of a different door to the one he came in from.

Seconds later a slight red head slipped in. "There aren't many people who can sneak up on me Ms Romanoff."

AN: Ooh, so close to telling him. Thanks for reading all :D