Hi everyone! I am so sorry that I have not posted this chapter for so long! I was on vacation over thanksgiving break and the places we went to had no wifi. I think that should be a crime and it stopped me from both writing and posting so I was not happy about that. The good thing was I got to visit the places where they filmed Sherlock. Definitely a plus. So here is the long overdue chapter that (I hope) you have been eagerly anticipating.
Not mine, never mine, usual disclaimers
"One of my many titles is Trickster, why should I reveal my secret?"
With that parting comment Loki strode quickly back over his room where the door automatically closed and locked behind him with a loud click. The sound did not unnerve the injured god as it normally would as he was still caught up the incredulous look on Stark's face. It was only when he lay back down on the bed that he realized that he was still shirtless and had neglected to grab the bandages from the drawer.
It was all Stark's fault.
o~*+*~o
Of course the damnably polite dinging of the elevator announcing the new arrivals would go off right after the door to Loki's room slammed shut and locked, leaving him no time to run after the man and demand answers.
There had been something wrong about the way Loki had shivered so suddenly, the god's lower internal temperature should have made the kitchen warm, almost hot, for him, even though he had been damp from the recent bath. Tony could suspect all he wanted but, if he had to guess, he would say that something had caused the injured god to shiver and that same thing was what alerted Loki to Clint and Natasha's arrival.
Damn the assassins and their terrible timing.
The doors to the elevator slid open to reveal two pissed off killers striding towards him. The sight almost made Tony laugh because, instead of the black bodysuit that Natasha had worn the last time she had come and stabbed him with something, the Black Widow was wearing jeans and a colorfully stripped t-shirt. Clint on the other hand stood slightly behind Natasha and where she was wearing bright colors Clint was wearing black pants and a dark blue hoodie.
"Where is he?"
The redhead's demand immediately made Tony question the broken SHIELD's intelligence because he had thought that the only person to believe that Loki wasn't really dead was himself. Who is SHIELD was smart enough to think that as well? No one was so it must not be Loki they were looking for. Tony hoped that it wasn't Loki that they were looking for because Tony wasn't completely sure how far he was willing to stick his neck out for the other man, enemy or not.
"Who?" Tony asked as he was slowly backed against his counter, playing the victim because a confident captor always told all.
"You know who!"
Well, Tony would know who if he was only hiding one person that was hunted by SHIELD but he had two and, even though one was highly unlikely, Loki's return to the tower wasn't exactly silent.
"Now tell us where he is!" Natasha looked ready to put him in a chokehold until he answered, not that he would be able to answer when he lacked the ability to properly breathe, but Tony just smiled in the face of it. This had nothing on Afghanistan and Natasha in normal clothes was very not threatening.
"I don't know what happened to make you guys finally, officially, crazy but I don't know who he is much less where the mysterious he is." His response made Clint, who had been following behind silently, narrow his eyes and Natasha shake her head sharply.
"We know he is here, SHIELD has been monitoring his movements." The only person that Tony knew for sure had been previously monitored by SHIELD was Bruce because SHIELD had no where near the tech needed for a tracker that had a range that spanned realms. Bruce it was then.
"Who's movements?" Tony cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow slightly for effect. "Plus, SHIELD is practically gone, unless you want to tell me that the organization is continuing underground."
There was only so much dumb a self-proclaimed genius could play and it was so obvious that it wasn't SHIELD that sent them, the broken intelligence still scrambled after the helicarrier incident. Incident being a very, very lenient opinion. It had been closer to a catastrophe.
"Banner's movements." Tony almost smirked when he heard Natasha's admission. No one failed to fall for the dumb, lost genius facade. Narcissistic playboy was the perfect cover.
"Why Banner? Jolly Green left us after the war, never to return." Tony added a little flourish of his hand at the end and put his hand over his heart as if he were wounded, gaining the rolled eyes and exasperated expressions he was looking for. The predictability of the reactions almost made Tony smile.
"He is dangerous." That oh so predictable remark made Tony roll his own eyes. "Of course he is, he turns into a giant when he is angry, but what does that make you? He is completely harmless when he's calm but you and bird brain over there are dangerous all the time."
It was so hypocritical for two assassins that had murdered dozens of people on purpose to call a man who unconsciously and out of fear injured and occasionally killed his attackers in self defence. Out of the two, the assassins were more dangerous on average than the Hulk.
"Why do you even care where he is?" Tony leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms in front of his chest in subtle defence. Clint and Natasha obviously did not care about Bruce's condition or whereabouts, no matter what they said otherwise, but who were they working for and why were they here?
Natasha turned half away from Tony, her profile shadowed by her hair as she gazed at the ground. It was all very dramatic and Tony was very unimpressed. If he wanted dramatics then he could just go into a room with Loki for a more entertaining evening.
"I was a SHIELD agent, dedicated my life to it, only to find it corrupted down to the very top of the system," Natasha started. So it was going to be the sob story angle, Tony could work with that.
"I bet it didn't help that they were creating highly weaponized helicarriers or sending Barton on the easiest missions in the most remote places that kept him far away," Tony broke in with a smirk. Both assassins immediately snapped their heads towards him and Tony gracefully maneuvered himself around the pair so he was standing near his living room, his back to the windows that held a perfect view of the setting sun over the New York skyline.
"How-" Clint started but Tony quickly cut the man off. Tony still found it strange that Clint had barely spoken the entire time.
"Genius, remember?"
That remark earned him another scoff from Natasha and a small snort from Clint, who finally managed to brighten up a little and cracked a small smile.
"So you are here why exactly?" Tony had some guesses but he needed more data to form a sound conclusion. That didn't really matter though because the game of finding out what he could tease out of his guests was so much more fun.
"We need your help."
That was not exactly the response he had been expecting.
"Wow, that is not something I expected to hear when I woke up this morning." The shock that Tony let slide onto his face was not all faked. The two top agents of SHIELD coming to him for help? An unprecedented event.
"Stop messing around Stark. You made Banner's signature disappear off the face of the Earth, when we left SHIELD was still trying to locate him," Natasha admitted with a small drop of her head, almost as if she were reluctant or ashamed to admit it. What caught Tony's attention though was how she said they left SHIELD. It seemed so...final.
"Then how did you know to come here?"
"It was no secret to us that you were the one that Banner was the most comfortable with out of all of us and that plus your resources and similar hobbies led us to believe that he would go to you as a last resort."
"Last resort? I'm insulted." Tony placed his hand over his heart once again in mock pain as he smirked at the agents once again.
With a more serious face Tony asked his next question. "SHIELD?"
"I did not report my speculation." Not exactly the answer Tony had been looking for but it didn't really matter.
"Barton?"
"Dont worry, I didn't tell either." The archer's voice was quieter and significantly less cheery than Tony remembered from after the battle. Something about the last few missions must have really affected the man.
"I'm not worried about what SHIELD would do to me, SHIELD is as incompetent as the rest of you so if you had told anyone and if they had sent someone in then they wouldn't have been able to get through the front door. I'm just worried that they might do something that would force me to destroy them."
Tony threw a cheeky smile onto the end to off put the threat to SHIELD embedded in his reply. As always, it worked to perfection and he was met with an exasperated shake of heads and rolling of eyes from both of the former agents.
"Sure, Stark," Natasha replied in a joking tone, obviously unbelieving that the alcoholic playboy Tony Stark would be able to cause any damage on any significant level.
Tony could never understand how everyone always forgot that it was him inside the suit, who built the suit in the first place, and the one who managed to do this all within the confines of a cave in Afghanistan during his abduction. And then there was the fact that he had built the miniaturized arc reactor out of scraps, something the top SI scientists were still unable to do in their newly upgraded labs.
"So can you help us or not?" Clint asked petulantly as he sat perched on the top of his counter. Rolling his eyes, Tony accepted that if he was going to do what he planned to do then he was going to have to get used to the archer sitting on each and every raised surface reachable.
"Make two of SHIELD's top agents-" Tony broke off with a smirk at Clint and Natasha's dark looks, "-former agents disappear off the face of the Earth while possibly also harboring other wanted members from SHIELD? Piece of cake." And it really would be. Tony could wipe their files and signatures from every network in his sleep.
If either of the former agents noticed the minor discrepancy of "members" instead of "member" they did not show it as both assassins nodded in thanks, but Tony wasn't done with them yet.
"Hold up a sec. Before I show the two of you your rooms, why exactly are you here?" Tony straightened and took a step forward so he could look Natasha in the eye. After their eyes locked, both parties refused to back down.
"Are you both really leaving the organization that saved you, got you back on your feet, and gave you a home and family?"
It was a blunt question of loyalty, one that Tony didn't know that Natasha would be able to truly answer. The woman owed her life to SHIELD but also to Clint and Tony was interested to see which had a stronger hold on her.
Surprisingly, it was Clint who stepped forward and took Natasha's place in the staring contest, the man's eyes full of genuine hurt and anger. Whatever Clint said next Tony believed would be the truth but that didn't mean he had to trust Natasha to the same degree. After all, she had betrayed him before, even if the deception wasn't as true as it could have been because he had known she was a SHIELD agent before he had hired her.
"I was the one that Loki controlled, nearly took down the helicarrier and killed my fellow agents. I didn't really matter that they knew that I was being controlled or that I fought in the final battle, I was the one that killed their friends." Clint broke eye contact and stared at his shoes as he bit out his last remarks.
"They took my bow and sent me away. Now I'm leaving for good."
His statement complete, Clint turned away and began to walk back towards the elevator, Natasha following and gently placing one hand on the man's slightly hunched shoulder in comfort. Natasha then turned and said clearly, "I couldn't let him leave alone," before turning back to her partner again.
Because both of the assassins had their backs to him, neither saw the calculating expression that briefly crossed Tony's face or the way it was quickly slipped under a mask of cheeriness that was only partially faked. After all, the best lies had some bit of truth in them.
"You two have that brother sister thing going on so I had two separate floors made, one for each of you but connected with a hidden staircase," Tony threw out as he strode past the pair towards the elevator. One glance back confirmed his suspicions and he turned away quickly before he burst out laughing at the assassins expressions.
"Don't look so surprised. One, I am a genius, something you two seem to overlook far too often. Two, I was planning on bringing all the former Avengers to the tower once the reconstruction was finished. Besides," Tony glanced back at the twin looks of hidden confusion and astonishment clearly written on the master assassin's faces, "the revamp was the perfect time to add extra floors and customized rooms."
"Customized rooms?"
"Yep. It's Candyland and I have had no complaints so far."
The trio piled into the elevator and Tony ordered JARVIS to head down to Natasha and Clint's designated floors. Unknown to all but the all seeing JARVIS was the near hysterical laughter of the raven haired man laying in the bed he shared with Tony. Who could not laugh at the all too obvious expressions clearly written on the formerly top SHIELD agents faces?
So the wait for the next chapter should not be nearly as long but it is still in the works and AP Physics is wearing me down. Please leave a review for encouragement and I might be inclined to take an hour or two off from homework and write instead. Not that I don't do that a lot of the time already. Still, a review would mean the world.
Please review!