Never in his life has Tony been so glad to see a Texas license plate on a rusted-out old Dodge Ram as it rumbles its way down the dirt road stretching before him. Never before has a neon sign flickering KOZY KLOUD MOTEL – VACANCY on the outskirts of a dusty little town looked more inviting.

Room 108 isn't exactly the Presidential Suite. Not even the Economy Family Suite, but it'll have to do. Thor sets Loki, who looks to be halfway asleep, down on a floral nylon bedspread as Tony takes stock of their new lodgings: faded curtains hiding a dirty window complete with dead flies, an air conditioning unit that emits a whiny grinding noise when he switches it on, a big tube TV bolted to the dresser, and an ashtray, a phone, and an alarm clock glued to the night table between two queen beds. He checks the drawer: bible not glued down. Maybe it's meant to be stolen.

The bathroom features a standard flimsy-curtained shower-bath, peeling linoleum, and only one small towel, which Tony uses to wash his face and hands of all the desert dirt. Cloudy brown water takes its time swirling down the sink's clogged drain. He hucks his shaving kit on the bathroom counter and the backpacks into the closet: a closet that's nothing more than an alcove just outside the bathroom, with no door and only two of those stupid hangers you can't take off the bar.

"So, uh," he says to Thor, poking his toe at a stain on the headache-inducing red and brown carpet, "you're probably used to better accommodations. I know I am. But since the Sofitel Podunk Texas doesn't appear to exist..."

"This will be adequate for now," says Thor. "We need only wait until Loki's magic is restored. Then..." His voice trails off, leaving the last word hanging in the air.

"You still think we should go after the Tesseract?"

"What other choice do we have, Tony Stark?"

Tony sinks down onto the end of the bed, careful to avoid Loki's squirming feet. 'Not much of a choice' would be the answer to that question. Thor needs to take Loki home. Thor needs the cube to take Loki home. Tony, having fucked up everything and painted himself into a corner before digging his way into a spectacular hole, is now along for the ride. (And may soon find himself applying for refugee status on Asgard if things keep going the way they are with S.H.I.E.L.D..)

"We should revisit our plan," Thor continues. "If Loki is recovered by tomorrow night-"

"No. We left my armor back in Atlantic City, and without it I'm won't be much help."

It's depressing to admit, but saying those words out loud make the situation seem suddenly worse. He won't be much help. Actually, he won't be any help. Without the suit he can't fly, can't fight, can't bust through walls and go on crazy adventures with the Gods of Intergalactic Chaos. At best he'd be the smart-mouth sidekick. At worst he'd be in the way and get somebody (namely himself) injured or killed. Or he'd simply be left behind, no longer even factoring into the equation.

"Fuck. Fucking fuck, Thor. Why does everything have to be so... fuck!" His head drops into his hands and then somehow his fingers are pressing into his eyes, hard enough to make light bloom in psychedelic patterns. "I need to get my suit." Needs to, like it's become a life necessity or something: water and air. And son of a bitch, it makes him feel like a schmuck to see how dependent he's become. How useless and weak and small he feels without it. He can easily adapt to life on the run, falling from the luxury of a penthouse suite down through middle-class vacation home mediocrity and into some rat-hole motel. Take away his money, power, influence? Fine. He'll survive. Take away the suit? It's worse than being naked. It's being helpless.

He needs it. Not even to wear it: just to know he has access. To see it and know it's there. That safety line would be enough. "We're closer to Malibu, where I have all the older models stored. But the newest version will be ready to go by now, back in New York. Unfortunately, I'll bet you anything in the world S.H.I.E.L.D. has both of those places under surveillance so tight they'll know the minute a pigeon shits on the roof." Fuck. Again. Just, fuck. He looks up. "D'you think Loki would be able to beam in, grab the suit, and beam back out before anyone could do anything?"

He realizes what a ridiculous suggestion that is even before Thor makes the 'surely you jest' face. But desperate times, yada yada, desperate measures. "I mean, provided we can convince him to listen to us. And then to do what we want. And also to come back. I know sending Loki on his own to retrieve a highly specialized piece of weapons technology is not the greatest plan, but he's the only magic user we have in our party and I'm fresh out of ideas that actually make sense."

"I will think of something," says Thor. "I have been in worse positions, and faced greater dangers. We will retrieve your armor, Tony Stark. And then we will take back the Tesseract. This can be done."

Thor sounds so sincere that Tony can't help but feel a little more optimistic. Because damnit, he needs to believe this will all turn out in the end, and he didn't make all the wrong choices. "Okay. I'll take your word for it. But right now... well, would you be up for taking a break from being superheroes to get some food? I'm starving."

To his relief, Thor replies with an enthusiastic nod. "Yes, I agree. We should eat."

"Awesome. You want to chain Loki to the hammer again?"

"No... Loki shifted us as soon as I released the chain. It fell to the floor and I did not have time to grab it." He looks almost angry with himself as he speaks. "I fear we must leave him here alone."

"You think he'll be okay? And by okay I mean safe, for everyone in this building?"

"I think... he will be safe," says Thor. "And perhaps it be for the best that he is left free. The enchantments on the chain restrict his magic, and right now he is overcome by it and will need to release some of that energy. He will be better off unbound."

Both of them look down at Loki, who's lying on the bed with his arms outstretched, hugging the mattress. Giggling to himself and rubbing his face against the bedspread.

Tony cringes. "Yeah, he looks good. Or at least harmless. For now."

"Agreed. Let us find food."

ooo

In hindsight, maybe tacos weren't the greatest idea. Tomatoes keep dropping on Tony's pants, and his hands are covered in salsa verde. "We should've gone for burgers," he says to Thor, who's trying to cram the whole thing in his mouth to keep it from falling apart. They also should've gone for napkins.

But other than the mess, things aren't bad. There are worse places to sit and relax and eat than on a rocky ridge just outside of town, watching the sun sink below the horizon in a ripple of orange and pink as the starry blanket of night creeps in from the east. It's peaceful out here. No street lamps, no traffic, no sirens. No S.H.I.E.L.D., no Loki, no imminent threat to world peace. No cell phones or awkward conversations. Just tacos and a six-pack and a bottle of JD in a paper bag.

"You know, this is actually kind of nice," says Tony. "Obviously, I'd rather be at home in my living room, but as far as being a fugitive on the run goes? This doesn't totally suck. I can pretend I'm on vacation."

Thor nods and makes an agreeable 'mm' sound through his mouthful of food.

"Vacation in rural Texas. I'm sure that's ironically popular with some subset of hipster culture. Why do you think Loki dumped us here anyway? As opposed to-" He pauses to look around. "-anywhere else in the world."

"Magic," Thor explains. Then swallows. "Loki must shift to places he knows or can see, or else he must guess at the destination and could end up in the middle of a river or inside a mountain. I now believe he was trying to take us to the Bifrost site where he sent the Destroyer, but lost control before he could transport us the entire way."

Makes sense, Tony thinks, and then, immediately, I can't believe the crazy shit that now 'makes sense'. "Guess it's a good thing he didn't try to take us to Stuttgart, otherwise we'd be drowning in the Atlantic right now."

"Mm," Thor says again, starting into his second taco.

"You want a beer to wash that down?"

Nod. "Mm."

"Or something a little stronger?" Tony shakes his paper-bag bottle.

Once again, Thor stuffs the entire taco into his mouth before speaking. "I will try that."

The look on Thor's face as a he takes a generous swig is worth the risk of taco backwash. He manages to choke it down, but just barely, before shoving the bottle back at Tony. "Fuck!" he growls, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Tony can't help but smile; that's definitely on the top-ten list of things he never thought he'd hear Thor say. "You have that word on Asgard?"

"Tony Stark, we invented that word on Asgard. We also invented far superior liquor; I would not expect swill so foul in the lowest tavern.

"Hey, this is a classic American product you're badmouthing. The face of my country."

For a moment Thor wavers, the expression on his face uncertain of whether or not Tony's joking. Looks like he decides to err on the side of caution. "I apologize. I did not mean to offend."

Tony just grins. "Apology accepted on behalf of the great state of Tennessee if you take another drink. I want to watch you make that face again."

"No," growls Thor. "It tastes like Jotun piss."

"I hope that's a normal Asgardian thing to say, not something you know from personal experience."

"It is a normal thing to say," Thor assures him, again probably taking things too seriously.

"Just have a beer instead. You like beer, right? Vikings have to like beer."

Nodding, Thor grabs a can of PBR. And then goes for a third taco. "The beer is passable. Though... it still tastes like watered-down Jotun piss."

"Yeah, I think I may agree with you there," says Tony, holding out his hand. "Taco me."

This time he's a little more careful and manages to eat almost the whole thing before the end falls apart, scattering oily beef and half-melted cheese across his lap. Nice. Maybe he should've gone with Thor's down-it-all-and-worry-about-chewing-later tactic. The third one, he eats bent over with his knees spread wide, dropping bits of escaped food onto the dirt between his feet. Better.

"Can I ask you something?" he says to Thor once he's finished and topped it all off with a couple swigs of Jack.

"Of course," Thor replies through his fifth taco.

"Keeping in mind that this is just me thinking, and I tend to think too much, and maybe I'm on the wrong track here, but this keeps sticking in my head. 'Tastes like Jotun piss'. Common kind of thing to say on Asgard. I'm assuming you say a lot of stuff like that?"

"I suppose."

"All of it meant to be pretty derogatory?"

"Jotunheim has ever been the enemy of Asgard, its people little more than violent savages. We bear them no love. Why?"

"Like I said, just thinking. For the past couple days I've been wondering a lot about what the hell Loki's doing and why he's doing it. In opposition to popular media belief, I don't think the concept of 'evil' really exists. What we call 'evil' is usually just greed, ambition, hatred, fear, revenge, or plain ol' crazy. Any or all of those in one bad mixture. And Loki? I think he might be all of them. That's my assumption based on Fury's intel reports and, you know, just talking to him for more than three seconds. But I didn't really give the whole big picture too much more thought until right now."

"What do you mean?" asks Thor.

"Just bear with me a sec and I'll get to that. But first things first. When we landed on the beach the other day you told me Loki wasn't Asgardian. He's Jotun. Frost Giant. Whatever the hell that is, I still don't even know, but you make it sound pretty bad. And it didn't seem important then, but now things are starting to line up."

"How so?"

Tony takes a long pull on the bottle before continuing. "A lot of the time people think I have my head too far up my own rectum to notice anything other than how awesome I am, but really the opposite is true. I'm observant. I remember things. And I can add one plus one to make two. So now all these little pieces keep coming together and making me wonder. Like what you said in that first conversation we had, about how your brother wouldn't do the things S.H.I.E.L.D. said he did. That gets me thinking that up until the little incident in Puente Antiguo, Loki was just your average, run-of-the-mill dick doing the average, run-of-the-mill dick shit you told me about. Enough to piss everyone off, but no epic world-destroying. Not yet. Just being a pain in the ass. Am I right?"

"Those are harsh words, Tony Stark."

"Harsh but accurate?" Tony asks.

And Thor concedes, "Harsh but accurate."

"Thought so. Now. Moving sideways here a minute. You insulted my shitty whisky by saying it tasted like Jotun piss, then confirmed this would be a normal thing to say on Asgard. Off the top of your head, how do you suppose that makes Loki feel?"

Thor looks stunned. "I..."

"Just consider that. On the one hand you call him your brother, but on the other you casually toss out these remarks that make it clear you don't think too highly of his people."

"No," says Thor, shaking his head. "Those are not his people; Loki is not one of them. He is-"

"You said it yourself," Tony interrupts. "Jotun by blood. You also said he didn't know until recently. So I'm thinking this sounds like a perfect catalyst for turning him from run-of-the-mill dick to batshit fucking crazy, if he suddenly finds out his family is a lie and he actually belongs to a race that's widely despised by the people he thought he belonged to."

But Thor doesn't get it; he only shakes his head more vehemently, shutting out what he doesn't want to hear. "No. Loki knows he is loved as part of our family-"

"But that's just it," Tony persists. "He clearly doesn't know. Now correct me if I'm wrong at any point, because I'm cobbling this together from a lot of different sources. But Loki finds out he's adopted. That in itself is a pretty big blow. At the same time he finds out he's not actually Asgardian after all. No, he's Jotun, which is something he's learned to hate his whole life. Something he's grown up listening to you hate. The only logical conclusion he can draw is that you now hate him. Everyone does. So he goes on the offensive. Offense is the best defense, right? Get everyone before they can get you. He's convinced you hate him? Good, he'll hate you right back, twice as much, even though you're stranded on Earth and have no idea what the fuck is going on. He's off the deep end and would rather kill you than risk talking to you and having all his fears confirmed."

"No!" This time, Thor jumps to his feet, teeth-baring scowl on his lips and hands clenched into fists. "I faced him! I told him! He is my brother still, in my heart, no matter his true birth! But he is too blinded by self-pity to see my love for him!"

Groaning, Tony rubs his face. Playing family mediator isn't exactly how he planned to spend the evening. "Thor, it's a good thing you're pretty, because you're honestly being a real moron right now. It's not about what you tell him. Actually, that probably makes it worse, because you still see nothing wrong with throwing out those Jotun comments and therefore don't get Loki's point of view. It's like..." He has to scramble through his brain for a useful analogy. "Okay, those four friends of yours that came after you. One of them was a woman."

Thor doesn't sit back down, but at least his hands relax as he frowns uncertainly at Tony. "Yes. Sif."

"Yeah. Now think of some of the comments men might make about women. All the bottom of the barrel, really shitty stuff. How much grief do you think your friend Sif got for fighting alongside you instead of acting like a lady? How many times do you think she's heard that women are weak, inferior, have no business on the battlefield? Would you ever say anything like that, about any woman, in front of her? And then tack on a quick disclaimer that you're only talking about women in general, but not her, because she's your friend? And she shouldn't be offended? Women don't know how anything about war; they should all go back to the kitchen! But not you, Sif. You're not that kind of woman; you're different, you act like one of us men. What do you think she'd do?"

"It's not the same..." Thor insists. His voice is softer, though; he knows the argument is feeble as his head fills with doubt.

"All Jotuns are monsters and we hate them," says Tony. "But not you, Loki, you're not that kind of Jotun. You pretend to be one of us."

Thor sits down at that. No, not so much 'sits' as 'drops', hard onto the rock, like his knees give out. Slowly, he runs a hand through his hair. And again. He doesn't immediately speak, but he sighs, and that tells enough. Eventually, very quietly, he says, "Loki tried to destroy Jotunheim."

"Of course he did. How else would he prove he's 'not that kind of Jotun' and redeem himself? You told me you had just killed dozens of them for no reason at all before your dad kicked you out of Asgard, so how should he interpret that?"

This time, Thor doesn't answer at all.

Sidling a little closer, Tony clears his throat. "Look, maybe I'm talking out of my ass here and shouldn't have said anything. Like I told you, I tend to think too much. Most of it's probably complete bullshit because it's junk I thought of just now coupled with other junk I thought about today while walking through the desert and getting heatstroke and frying my brain. But what I was thinking is... we can't do this without Loki's cooperation. You were right back at the house when you said he should help us. He's the only one who knows how to use the Tesseract, so even if we don't necessarily need him to get it, we'll need him once we have it. And he's not going to cooperate unless something changes, so I'm just trying to understand where he's coming from. Where this kill-all-humans thing started. You might want to take him back to Asgard, but I sort of want to ensure his plot to destroy the Earth doesn't work out. Best way I can think of to stop that is to stop whatever it is that's driving him to do it."

"And how do we do that?" Thor mumbles.

Well... "I think you start by talking to him and actually listening to what he says."

"I have talked to him and-"

"You've probably talked at him. Sorry, pal, but I've known you for all of a week and already I can tell you're a terrible listener. You need to fix that. You also need to broach this topic with your brother, and if I know Loki he'll respond by launching into some big tirade, which you will listen to and internalize. And then you'll make insightful comments that maybe lead into a real conversation."

"I... can try," says Thor, sounding pretty damn defeated.

"No." Tony claps him on the shoulder. "Do. Or do not. There is no try. Sort out your family shit while there's still time. And you know what? This might be a good time. I think Loki's coming around to being part of the team. He saved our skins earlier. Not just his own: all three of us. That's a good sign, right?"

Thor's reply is so quiet Tony almost misses it. It sounds like, "Just you."

"Sorry?"

"Just you, Tony Stark," he repeats. "Loki would have shifted with just you. He had both his hands on your shoulders. I knew what he was about to do, and so I grabbed his arm... which is why I missed the chain."

"...Oh."

There should be something else to say in response. Something like 'that's ridiculous' or 'Loki was probably expecting you to hold his arm' or any other similar, meaningless words in an attempt to rationalize what happened and dispel the weird feeling starting to twist in Tony's stomach. Of course Loki wouldn't have meant to escape with Tony while leaving Thor behind...

But Thor changes the subject before 'something else' becomes necessary. "Loki used to be happy," he says, voice no more than a low rumble. "He was always happy, when we were children. I was the angry one, quick to fly into a temper. Loki always knew what to do to diffuse my rage. When I was in the worst of moods, he knew he only needed to make me laugh by putting a piece of cheese up his nose and everything would be fine. I have this memory... a very distinct memory of arguing with my mother, screaming terrible things, until she finally snapped at me that she was thankful fate had sent her at least one kind-hearted son, so that Loki's bright joy could counterbalance my violence and negativity. That was how people saw him. Bright joy. Always happy, always smiling. Causing some mischief, yes, but never anything malicious. Silly little jokes and nothing more. He liked making people laugh."

He draws a breath: one pause that stretches into a chasm severing past from present. "I do not know what happened. When he started pushing deeper and more seriously into his magic... Before, he would link his arm though mine and sing this horrible, crude song we both found hilarious, but soon he could scarcely meet my eyes and his smile seemed forced, like he was putting on a show of pretending to be the person he had once been. For years I watched him sink further into silence and secrecy, unable to help no matter what I did. And eventually he came out the other side, but... changed again. This time hardened and sharp like forged steel. He spoke with bitter words. His jokes turned cruel and his smile became a sneer. He built a fortress around his heart not only to shut out any who dared to come close to him, but also to keep everything he might feel secure and hidden. He locked himself away, and every time I spied a crack in the wall and tried to dig my way in, he would patch the gap and build his defenses up stronger than ever."

"And that would be the Loki we all know and love today," says Tony. It's a dumb thing to say, and he regrets it the second he opens his fat mouth because it does nothing to lighten the mood or lift the dead weight of Thor's words bearing down on both their backs.

Thor just chews his lip. "Over time I sometimes felt like the brother I remembered might be coming back. He lost much of that sharpness and eventually seemed at peace with whatever had tormented him for so long. The guarded secrecy never left him, but sometimes I thought the wall might be thinning as little fragments of the true Loki shone through." Letting out a sigh that drags out into a pained groan, he drops his head and presses a white-knuckled fist against his cheek. "But now all of that is undone and he is back to where he was a thousand years ago: vicious, cold, deceitful... Only this time he is also riddled with ambition and a mad desire to wreak havoc on everything in his path. So while I appreciate your attempt to help, Tony Stark..."

"Right," Tony replies. He can read between the lines here loud and clear, message shouting out from Thor's rigid, hunched shoulders: Loki is fucked up beyond redemption and there's nothing we can do now but put him in a cage to stop him from hurting anybody. Nice try though, Stark, smugly thinking you have all the answers and can fix a thousand years of interstellar Viking drama through the amazing ploy of getting them to talk to each other. That B minus in Psychology 101 really paid off. Pick up your Nobel Peace Prize right over here!

"But I mean it might still be worth a shot," he says to Thor, though it doesn't make him feel any less like a meddlesome dickhole. "Just, you know, having a real conversation and... um. Yeah. Never mind. I have no idea what I'm talking about, but have this tendency to keep moving my mouth in the hope that at some point if I say something with enough conviction, it'll sound like good advice."

"Hm," says Thor. And that's all he gives before he stands up again to pace a few steps away. He looks back once at Tony and draws a breath to speak, but words fail and he's left with a mouthful of empty air.

"Where you going?" Tony asks, thought the answer is obvious. Away.

"Walk," Thor grumbles. "I need to... think over some things."

"Aw, come on, that's not fair. We get to go through all your family crap in detail and then you bail before I have a chance to dump on you about my probably-ex-girlfriend?"

"Oh... I..." Awkwardly, Thor shifts his weight from one foot to the other and makes a hesitant, incomplete movement to sit back down. "Forgive me; I can stay if you wish to discuss your troubles."

"Nah, I'm just shitting you. Go ahead. I don't want to talk about my stupid feelings."

He wants to sit and drink away those stupid feelings instead.

It's only after Thor's ambled off and disappeared into the darkness that Tony dares to open the gate and actually face the reality of what happened between him and Pepper earlier. Replay the conversation. Take it all in, word by word, wrapped up with all the stormy silences full of all the things that didn't get said. It hurts, yeah, that's a given. But it's not a sharp pain. This feels more like the dull ache of nostalgia, looking back with resigned longing to something already filed away in the archives of the past.

You had a good run, the memories say as his mind's eye flicks through a long loop of images. Not perfect, but more good times than bad.

Maybe it's a blessing that things ended now, before he could really fuck it up and tarnish the legacy of the one thing he had almost done right.

He takes a drink in a silent toast to Pepper, feeling the alcohol burn its way down his throat in a slow cascade. Here's to us. We gave it a shot, and it was fun while it lasted. Unfortunately, there's no participation award when it comes to relationships. No ring for well-intended yet failed attempts.

For that, there's just drinking by yourself.