Are You There, God of Mischief? It's Me, Tony

by fullofleaves

If mind-controlled Barton doesn't come to spring Loki from the helicarrier, somebody else might have to. That somebody might be Tony Stark, who might not agree with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interrogation methods and treatment of prisoners. Luckily, with Thor's help, Supervillain Rescue Mission is a go. Too bad it starts spinning wildly out of control within minutes. M/M Slash, adult content.

23. A Perfect Day

On Sunday morning, for the first time in recent memory, Tony Stark wakes up feeling almost perfectly content. 'Almost' because he's still in a cabin in the helicarrier instead of at home, and 'almost' because his back aches from sleeping awkwardly on the S.H.I.E.L.D. equivalent to a cheap motel rollaway, but those are minor inconveniences, not even worth worrying about. Because Loki's there beside him. And Loki will be staying there beside him.

(Of course, to be really technical about it, Loki's currently halfway beside, halfway under him. Due to reasons pertaining to cramped rollaway. But Tony's okay with that. Under him is also a perfectly acceptable place for Loki to be, both now and in the future. An ideal place, even.)

"Morning," he murmurs against Loki's shoulder, breathing in the scent of warmth and sweat and that secretive tang of sex still clinging to Loki's skin. A perfect scent; no 'almost' here. Something he's already looking forward to waking up next to tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. "You awake?"

Loki's awake. He rolls over with a gentle mm sound, wrapping his arm around Tony's waist to pull the two of them closer. Body to body. Face to face. His lips easily find Tony's for one of those soft, lazy kisses that only ever happen in moments like this. Perfectly content moments. Shimmering afterglow moments before they have to pry themselves apart and remember there's another world out there, laden with duties and responsibilities and a thousand things to do.

"Sleep well?" Tony asks.

"No. You?"

"Shitty." But it doesn't matter, and he smiles, parting his lips to let Loki's tongue find his own. They'll sleep better tonight. Maybe. At the very least, they'll have a more comfortable bed. But no guarantees for any kind of sleep. "You ready to not go back to Asgard?"

Loki squeezes his eyes shut – they were never open in the first place, but he squeezes them shut, creased tight against the light – and lowers his head so his chin rests on Tony's shoulder. "Nearly. I have a few last arrangements to make."

"What could you possibly have to arrange before not going somewhere?" Tony teases.

"Thor."

Oh. Right.

"I'll need to tell Thor of this change to his plans. He won't be happy."

"You want to break it to him before breakfast?"

Loki's nose brushes Tony's neck when he shakes his head. "No. Later this afternoon. I'd rather not allow him too much time to work up a temper over it."

"Stun him into silence, huh?" Tony asks. Which doesn't strike him as the best way to go, but it's Loki's problem, and Loki's brother. Loki's a big boy who can make bad decisions on how to deal with this all on his own. He has time. Unfortunately, maybe more time than originally anticipated, since Tony had one of those inconvenient lightbulb-over-the-head thoughts in the middle of the night that he'll need to discuss with Bruce before the portal's ready to go.

But that's for later. For now, his hand slides up the back of Loki's neck, and then his fingers continue on through tangles of hair, gently twisting it in his grip. "Maybe," he begins, "after Thor's gone, I should steal the company jet back from Pepper and fly us to California. Get away from all this for a while."

"I don't think we'll be able to do that just yet."

"Why not?"

"Do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. will let us?"

"Do I think it's any of their fucking business, and do I care if they'll 'let' us?"

"They will make it their business." Looking up, Loki presses his lips to Tony's jaw, and speaks against the scratch of stubble. "Be prepared for the worst, Tony Stark. There will be much to do and many scores to settle before we win our freedom from Director Fury and his mindless minions."

That's supposed to be an ominous warning, Tony's pretty sure, and the kind of thing he should pay attention to, but Loki's mouth so close to his, and Loki's hand skimming down his side and slipping between his legs, have this way of turning his brain into a sieve and coaxing all thought to trickle away. "Okay," he manages to say. "Duly noted. First vanquish S.H.I.E.L.D.. But then week-long vacation of nothing but sex in Malibu?"

"If you wish," says Loki.

Sometimes even little words, phrased inconsequentially, can expand to fill an entire unspoken paragraph. Tony grins, wraps his arms tight around Loki's back, and pulls him into the kind of embrace he never wants to leave.

ooo

It's going to be an almost perfect day. 'Almost', again, because of a few minor little snags like he and Loki having to get out of bed, and also having to walk into the Avengers breakfast meeting together wearing yesterday's wrinkled clothes to face down five judgmental glares (Thor, Natasha, Fury, Coulson, and of course Barton), one embarrassed half-smile (Bruce), and one pleasantly oblivious 'good morning' nod (Steve). Tony ignores the glares. They're the ones who dragged him into this mess; they can put up or shut up when it comes to his deviant behavior. In a couple hours, none of it's going to matter anyway. Thor's taking the Tesseract back to Asgard. Problem solved and case closed. In a couple hours, he and Loki can extract themselves from this shit show and hopefully never have to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. again. It'll be over. Really, truly, over.

Yep. Perfect day.

He takes a seat next to Bruce at the conference table, trying not to grin like too much of a dork, and grabs a lemon strudel from the pastry tray before Thor can eat them all.

"Now that everybody's here," Fury begins in that usual tone of his that makes him sound like he was born impatient, "we called this meeting because Dr. Banner has a few things he needs to go over with the group before we can activate the Tesseract portal again."

"And send the Tesseract back to Asgard with Thor," Steve immediately adds. Almost as if he's had this conversation with Fury many, many times before.

"That's still under discussion," says Fury. "For now, Dr. Banner?"

"What's the deal today?" Tony quietly asks as Bruce stands. "Might this be about the same logistical problem I thought of in the middle of the night?"

"Maybe," Bruce whispers back. "What logistical problem did you think of?"

"Beamline."

Bruce nods. "Yeah. Same problem." He makes his way up to the display board at the front of the room, on which Coulson's pulled up a layered schematic diagram of Selvig's portal device. Everything rotates slowly as Bruce punches in a few commands, then the view zooms in on the storage ring and focus magnets, expanding a handful of components to fill the whole board.

"So, um," Bruce begins, nervously pushing his hair back from his forehead and adjusting his glasses. "As you can see, this is the... uh... this is how the device is currently designed. The energy from the Tesseract originates over here, and comes through this series of magnetic conductors." Drawing with his finger, a blue line appears down the center of the beam path. "But the device focuses the beam so that the portal is initiated..." He zooms out, shoving the device image to the far left side of the board while tapping his finger in a blue dot on the far right side. "...over here. Always at a fixed length. You can set that length, but it's never going to be less than three and a half meters. That's how this is designed. Anybody see the problem here?"

Yeah. Tony does. And like he suspected, it's the exact problem that popped into his head last night while he was doing some very important scientific thought exploration on exactly what he might like to do to Loki once Thor's safely back in Asgard. Everyone else, though, looks kind of lost, with the exception of Loki , who wears just the tiniest little smile, and, oddly enough... Steve. Of everybody in the room, Steve Rogers is the one who speaks up. And no matter how many times Tony tries to tell himself that Steve was allegedly the dictionary definition of a nerd before he turned into Arnold Schwarzenegger, it still seems unnatural to have him talk about anything more than dumbbells and shooting things up.

"If the portal is always three and a half meters from the device," says Steve, "the Tesseract is going to be the one thing we can never send through."

Bruce draws a star on the board and writes 'Steve' underneath. "Exactly. Selvig's original design was meant to create a portal at a distance to facilitate an alien invasion. For that purpose, it's perfect. For the purpose of taking the Tesseract with you when you go through the portal? Not so good."

"Can that be done?" asks Thor.

"It can," says Bruce, sounding less confident than Tony would've liked to hear. "We just need to figure out and tweak the design on a few things."

"Which shouldn't be too hard," Tony cuts in. "I mean," he explains as all eyes in the room turn in his direction, "the majority of the work is already there. The device is built, the battlestation is operational, so all we need to do is reconfigure the shape of the focus chamber to create a localized radiation field instead of a fixed-length beam. Here, let me show you. If you don't mind?" he asks Bruce as he stands.

Bruce, looking nothing less than relieved at no longer being the center of attention, steps back with a grateful nod and a gesture for Tony to go ahead.

The diagram on the board breaks down into component layers under Tony's touch: he pushes aside the outer shell, ditches that power source, and gets rid of everything except the casing for the Tesseract and the upper beamline portion. "This is the heart of the device. Everything I moved out can stay. The Tesseract housing chamber, here, can stay. The storage ring, here, which holds extracted energy and regulates output, can stay. The only part we need to change is the beamline cylinder. Here." One tap turns the cylinder red, and he flicks it away. "If we replace it with something that directs radiation omnidirectionally outward instead of shaping it into a beam, we end up with a portal that surrounds the Tesseract, taking it through."

"But if it just directs radiation outward," says Bruce, "we have no way to control the size of the portal cloud without a lot of extra calibrating mechanisms. The only way I can think to do that is with thousands of tiny, focused beams instead of a single big one."

Tony nods. "True. Unless we find a cheaper quick fix for this bad boy. So let me ask everyone, who's the laziest person here? Raise a hand. Anybody?" A quick glance around answers that question. "Nobody? Okay, that probably means I'm the laziest guy here. And in my experience, that old proverb about giving the hardest job to the laziest man because he'll find the fastest way to do it is true. So I say if we want to contain a cloud of energy and redirect it back to the source, the fastest, easiest way is to build a Faraday cage around it."

As Tony watches, Bruce's face changes from uncertain frown to spark of hope to agreeable smile of understanding. "That... that could possibly work."

"Of course it'll work. It's my idea. We build a container around the device, somebody goes in there, fires it up, and the whole thing is off to worlds unknown."

Bruce perks up even further. "Like a TARDIS."

"Like a TARDIS," Tony agrees. "A really half-assed TARDIS."

"How soon before this new device will be complete?" asks Thor. "Loki and I wish to depart with the Tesseract as soon as possible."

Fury, shaking his head under the weight of that perpetual frown, steps forward. "Now everybody hang on a minute. We still haven't finalized the decision of whether or not the Tesseract is going with Thor."

"I thought that was the purpose of yesterday's demonstration," says Steve. "To prove the thing is too dangerous to stay on Earth if it can be controlled so easily by people like Loki."

"We still haven't finalized the decision," Fury repeats, enunciating each word sharply.

"With all due respect, sir," Coulson starts, "we all saw what happened yesterday. And what we talked about with Dr. Selvig on Friday night..."

"The Tesseract is a relic of Asgard," Thor insists. "It belongs to my father. There is nothing to discuss. Loki and I will take it with us when we leave, and return it to its place in Asgard's vaults, safe and secure. Only the power of my people is sufficient to guard it."

"Agreed," says Steve.

"One more show of hands?" asks Tony. "Everyone in favor of sending the Tesseract with Thor?"

Fury's impatient declaration that important policies won't be decided like a grade-school popularity contest is drowned out by a low chorus of agreement as, one by one, everybody in the conference room raises a hand. Steve, Bruce, and Thor first, followed by Loki (barely, in bored way, as if the gesture is beneath him), Barton, Natasha, and finally an apologetically grimacing Coulson.

"Then everything is settled!" says Thor.

"Nothing is 'settled' until-" Fury barks, but he's interrupted by one of Natasha's no-nonsense head shakes.

"I think it's settled." She nods over at Thor, who's up out of his chair and trying to coax Loki into an unwanted congratulatory hug. "You want to fight over this with the God of Loud Noises?"

"When will the portal be ready?" Thor shouts from across the room.

"I have equipment back at the tower that can rig up a cage by this afternoon if you want to help me rework the energy output," Tony says to Bruce. "How long do you think that will take? Bearing in mind that 'a couple hours' is the correct answer."

"I don't know," Bruce replies. The smile he'd been wearing up to that moment drops like a stone. "I'll have you look at it and help me come up with the new design, but right off the bat I'm thinking we'll need more supplies. More iridium for sure. The core we have is sufficient to stabilize a single beam, but this refraction field you're talking about will need... I can't even say. We'll need to run through the calcs. Maybe as much as another six hundred grams and that's not going to be easy to track down. Or cheap."

"Money isn't an issue here."

"Tony, I'm not talking about a few thousand bucks worth of stuff we can pick up at Home Depot. I have a couple ideas where to start looking, but the jet fuel alone..."

"And I said money isn't an issue," Tony tells him. "Trust me. It's okay. I want to get this resolved before anything crazy happens or something fucks up or..." Loki changes his mind or Thor changes Loki's mind. "...somebody does something to wreck my good mood. Whatever you need, supplies, bribes, hired goons, anything: bill it to Stark Industries and I'll take care of the cost. We just need to move. You with me?"

Bruce blinks. "Um..."

"Yeah," says Tony, clapping him on the back. "You're with me."

Because it's a perfect day, and everything has to go according to plan. Almost.

ooo

What Tony thought before about the way the adventure ends wasn't exactly true. As it turns out, the end of the adventure wasn't Loki's uninspired capitulation. The true end involves welding and mechanics and science to the rescue, which is, at least in Tony's mind, a lot more satisfactory. A daring last-minute dash to finish the device that will send the Tesseract back to its home. One brave man toiling in Stark Tower to complete everything before time runs out. Racing against the clock. Fighting the soul-crushing presence of Natasha Romanoff, left by S.H.I.E.L.D. to babysit him while his intrepid partner, Bruce Banner, undertakes a valiant quest for supplies, armed with nothing but a blank checkbook, Captain America's nostalgic charm, and Agent Coulson's powers of negotiation. Okay, and Barton's Quinjet. Now that's a real ending, right?

Everything's in place for the grand finale. The Faraday cage is nearly complete, just getting its finishing touches from the robotic galley slaves downstairs, and Tony's done as much as he can to build a new focus mechanism according to the updated design. As soon as Bruce returns with the iridium to reshape the core, they'll be good to go. Selvig's portal device is on the roof of the tower, wired into the building's arc reactor, tested for power, and ready for action.

After all this time. After all that trouble. After everything that's happened, the end is so close it's almost tangible. Tony throws a glance over toward Loki and Thor, who sit awkwardly close on the couch, joined at the hip. Loki has his arms clamped over his chest, each hand grasping the opposite elbow, and he's frozen in stillness, not even moving his eyes. Thor keeps fidgeting. Drumming his fingers on his knees. Scuffing his heels against the floor. Chewing on his lip and clearing his throat. Shifting his weight from one side of his ass to the other.

"Relax," Tony tells him. "Everything's fine. It's all on schedule. Bruce texted a couple hours ago saying he and Steve found a supplier in Boston, and I haven't heard anything negative since, so let's assume that deal's working out and the Scavenger Hunt Team will be back within another couple hours. Anybody want a drink while we wait? Or I could order pizza."

"This is no time for food, Tony Stark," says Thor, sounding a lot touchier than usual. "If the device works now, I see no reason to wait for Dr. Banner's return. Loki can open the portal-"

"Loki can open the portal eleven feet up in the air with the way things are currently configured," Tony interrupts. "Now if you want to jump through it and leave the Tesseract behind, that would work, but-"

Thor interrupts him right back. "What of the cage you built? Is its purpose not to direct the energy back to the Tesseract?"

"Yes, but it's designed to contain a refracted energy output cloud, not a single concentrated beam. The strength of the beamline could potentially rip through the cage upon impact, and would absolutely break through within seconds. Sorry, pal, but we gotta wait for Bruce to replace the focus. Can't you keep the ants out of your pants for another few hours? And you sure you don't want pizza?"

"No," Thor snaps, and it's probably an answer to both those questions at once. No, he doesn't want pizza, and no, he sure as hell won't keep those ants out of his pants. If anything, he'll invite more to come on in. He jumps up from the couch to make a big fuss of sulking around like a grumpy toddler, first stomping over to the bank of windows, then glaring at the fireplace, and finally pacing behind Loki with an ever-increasing volume of huffing breaths.

The only attention he gets for his antics is from Natasha. And then, it's nothing special. "Thor, you've been waiting over three weeks to take Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard," she ways without even bothering to look at him. "You can wait a little longer."

It might be subconscious, the way her fingers toy with the catch that holds one of two HYDRA guns to her belt. It might be, but knowing Natasha, it's probably not. The bored voice doesn't mean she's bored, and that relaxed pose, sprawled out across a lounge chair with her feet up on a throw pillow, doesn't necessarily mean she's relaxed. One hand idly taps the gun while the other rests behind her head, but every muscle in her body is coiled and ready to strike.

When Thor doesn't reply to Natasha's dismissal, Loki quietly speaks up instead. "Might I make a request?"

Natasha narrows her eyes at him in a way that says You might, but we might not listen, while Tony nods for him to continue.

"While we wait, as there seems to be nothing else to do, I would like to take a moment to speak with Thor alone."

"Why?" Natasha asks through a frown of suspicion.

"Because he is my beloved brother and we've had very little opportunity for wholesome family bonding of late," Loki snaps. The sarcasm is strong with this one. "It does not concern you, Agent Romanoff. It is relevant only to Asgard. I would discuss with Thor certain factors relating to my return."

For a moment there, the petulant scowl leaves Thor's face, replaced by a bud of a smile as he looks down at his little brother. Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Poor Thor. He still thinks Loki's going home. He still thinks his family is about to be made whole again. That starry spark in his eyes says he thinks the problems are all over, that it's all about to go back to what he once knew: the happy, Asgardian ideal, with doting parents and loving brothers. The poor bastard.

And Tony should try to feel sorry for him. A little bit sorry. At least a tiny little knot of sorrow, somewhere deep inside, even on a theoretical level. But...

The thrill of desire still singing through his body since the morning's conversation with Loki is too wild to ignore. Pity for Thor would just ruin a perfect day. He taps Natasha's shoulder, urging her to stand. "Come on," he whispers. "I know what this is about. I can tell you."

"Tony Stark, why don't you go downstairs and fetch the scepter from the lab," Loki suggests. "Thor and I will not be long. Perhaps fifteen minutes. And we'll need the scepter once Dr. Banner returns, so you might as well retrieve it now."

"Good idea," says Tony. "You guys talk, we'll be back soon."

He tugs at Natasha's sleeve, leading her over in the direction of the staircase down to the labs, though she's a reluctant participant in this endeavor. "I'm not sure if leaving him alone is the greatest idea," she mutters as the door closes behind them and they head down the stairs. Six flights of stairs over three floors, but at least they're nice stairs. None of that dark concrete business full of exposed pipes and ductwork in Stark Tower, because Stark Tower is not a communist housing project. Its stairwells run down the sides of the building rather than alongside the central elevator shafts, leaving one wall open to a full bank of windows. It's bright, spacious, and airy, and nothing smells like pee.

"Loki can't do anything," says Tony, just to placate her. "Thor will keep him in line."

"He can teleport and escape."

"No, he can't. He can't teleport within two hundred feet of the Tesseract, which is currently sitting up on the roof guarded by six S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with those fancy guns of yours. Trust me, he just wants a couple minutes alone with Thor to break the news that..." Oh. Right. How does he explain this to Natasha? "Um." Does he want to explain this to Natasha?

He turns around in the middle of the stairs to see her staring back at him, one eyebrow curiously raised and a smartass quirk in her lips. "Break the news about what, Stark?"

"Just, um." He clears his throat. "Nothing. Never mind. It's none of our business what Loki decides to tell Thor."

"Hm," says Natasha. And they get almost to the landing before she adds, "Are you going to leave me to assume that Loki's telling Thor about you two sleeping together?"

Really, it's a good thing Tony's on the last step, because falling down more than one slate stair could have been disastrous. "No! That's... that's definitely not what Loki is telling Thor."

"Are you sleeping together?"

"No!" Tony pulls out his pass card and swipes it through the security lock on R&D level ten. "That is a ridiculous and unfair accusation."

Passing through the door, Natasha pauses just long enough to look him square in the eye. "Is this where you crack a joke about how you two can't possibly have done any sleeping with all the hot sex you're having?"

Aw, hell. She knows. That wasn't a guess. She knows. Beyond a doubt, proven fact, knows. "There was a security camera in that dorm cabin last night, wasn't there?"

"You two really livened things up in the monitoring station," she says with a smile, pushing past him into the lab. "Usually the highlight of the security reel is watching someone try to pick his nose in secret."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck... No, wait, that's what got him into trouble in the first place. Shit.

"Natasha, wait, I can explain," he begins, but a single raised eyebrow stops things right there.

"Stark, there's no need. You don't have to explain and you don't have to make excuses. Your personal choices are yours alone. It doesn't matter. This is over, Loki's going back to Asgard, and you'll move on to something new and, knowing you, worse."

"But that's just it. Loki's not going back to Asgard. That's the big news he's breaking to Thor right now. He's not leaving. He's staying here. With me."

It takes less than a second for the condescending smile to melt from Natasha's face. And only another second after that for the look of shock that arises in its wake to be replaced by steely hardness that strikes her whole body. "I think that might be a bad idea."

"You're right, it is," Tony agrees. "It's a terrible idea. I got that. Our entire relationship is a terrible idea, built on meaningless sex, mistrust, a total lack of communication, occasional bouts of violence, and more meaningless sex. But you know what? Despite all that, it still somehow works. Or maybe... because of all that. Natasha, do you have any idea how many relationships I've had in my life that lasted more than a week?" He waits just long enough for her to frown before continuing, "Five. Five relationships lasted more than a week. The longest lasted thirteen months, and that was with Pepper. Now how bad is that? I'm forty-two years old, and fucking teenagers have more successful dating records than I do. And you know why?"

"Stark," she sighs. "You don't have to justify this to me..."

"No, I don't, but I want to. I want you to understand something. Pepper was right. She called me impatient and unable to focus and always jumping from one project to the next, and that's completely true. That's why nothing works out for me. I get bored. I need a challenge. And with Loki... All the bad ideas are what make things work. I know fuck all about him, what he wants, or what he's doing. He never tells me anything. I have to work like hell to earn even the tiniest bit of acknowledgement, ninety percent of our day together is him rolling his eyes and telling me what a moron I am, making me panic that he's about to walk out on me at any second, and you know what? It works. The uncertainty is exhilarating. That's what I need."

"And you think that's a healthy relationship?" Natasha asks.

"No. Of course not. Like I said, it's terrible, but let me tell you something else. When Pepper and I first started, we tried to do things right. We had six dates - real dates with dinner and movies and picnics and boating and a champagne fight – before we slept together. We tried to do everything the right way, follow all the rules, and it still failed. With Loki? Everything started wrong. In the space of only a few weeks, we've both seen each other at our absolute worst. He's seen me drunk beyond reason and vomiting everywhere, moping over my ex, and acting like a total dick. I've seen him violent, hateful, injured, vulnerable... We met in the worst possible place for the worst reasons, and you know what? After that, there's nowhere to go but up. Every time he does something surprising, after all the shit I've seen from him, it's a good surprise. Like, 'Oh, Loki did something not totally horrible! Isn't that cute? I want to lick him all over.'"

Natasha makes a face. "You can spare me the details."

Okay, yeah, that was probably a little over the line. "Sorry. I'm just trying to say that Loki and I know next to nothing about each other except for those lowest moments, and yet we didn't turn away in disgust or fear. We're still drawn to each other. Somehow, this shitty, dysfunctional relationship we've cobbled together works. And... I want to at least try. Maybe it'll blow up in my face, but I have to at least try, right?"

No answer from Natasha. Not surprising, since her answer choices are limited to 'Yes, you should try,' which she won't say, and 'No, you should give up now,' which Tony refuses to hear. She rubs her hand over one eye, and leans back against the nearest table. "Well I hope you know what you're getting into."

"I don't," says Tony. And that's what makes it so exciting. That's what makes his blood run hot and his breath catch in his throat. The lack of knowledge, that absence of a safety net. Knowing something could be disastrous and doing it anyway. Isn't there some saying about how no great reward comes without great risk? Well this is the kind of risk that pays off with the greatest of rewards.

"Then I hope you at least think about what you're getting into," Natasha sighs. "And don't jump into anything that can't be undone. But for now let's just get the scepter and go back upstairs. Loki and Thor being on their own makes me worry too much."

The scepter is right where Loki left it, safe in a locked case at Station Two. Its blue gem glitters bright with internal fire, reflecting thousands of pinpoint galaxies along the edge of a viciously sharp blade.

"Did Loki tell you what it does?" asks Natasha.

"A little," says Tony. "Yesterday before the demonstration. He said that while the Tesseract is an amplifier, expanding the abilities of those who control it, the scepter is more like an accelerant, cultivating those abilities within you. The Tesseract only intensifies what you already know: the scepter brings out powers you never knew you had. Mental steroids."

The funny thing is, when Tony says those words, he doesn't really take much time to consider that they might apply to him, too.

And then...

There are five major human senses. Sight. Sound. Taste. Smell. Touch. And then that elusive sixth sense, that ill-defined concept of something supernatural, never rationally explained or pinned down. It might be psychic empathy, or it might be visions of the future, or it might be otherworldly communication. Just a catch-all bucket for anything outside the realm of normal human abilities, usually relegated to predictable movies about creepy children or hot women with sexy ghost problems.

The moment Tony picks up the scepter, he knows. And that's it, that's the sixth sense, right there: knowing. He knows, for example, that Natasha is standing two feet behind him. Not because he saw her before he turned to unlock the case, but because he can feel her there. The energy flows out of her body, as easy to sense now as seeing light or feeling heat. She's two feet behind him, silently raising her hands to adjust her belt. One floor down, somebody – on Sunday afternoon it has to be a janitor – moves in slow, deliberate steps, swaying his weight as he mops the floor. Three floors up...

He knows. He knows. So many things, and he just knows, as easy as breathing. Breathe in, and the thoughts flow free like air. Breathe out, and they settle into patterns in his mind, suddenly clear after so many weeks of clutter. He knows.

"Tony?" Natasha asks. She's worried. Her voice sounds calm and uninflected, but Tony can tell; her energy buzzes with anxiety. He feels her touch on his shoulder before it lands. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm... I'm good. Fine." The scepter is so warm in his hands, inviting all these thoughts to settle into one comfortable little niche in his brain. He can feel them there now. See and hear them, their abstract shapes and colors and sounds unfolding and multiplying into new planes of knowledge. Sentient particles shifting in and out of the borders of space and time.

"As soon as you touched that thing..."

"Really, I'm fine," he says. "I just... I had a sudden thought. A lot of sudden thoughts."

"About?"

Too many things, all crashing down at once, landing in the pattern of a cracked and ugly mosaic that tells a story he doesn't want to see.

"You know at the end of that movie The Usual Suspects?" he starts slowly. "When Chazz Palminteri's alone in his office and suddenly everything starts falling into place? Kobayashi and 'orca fat' and everything else? And then Kevin Spacey says that line about how the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist?"

"I..."

He spins around. "Listen. I sure as fuck hope I'm wrong but..." The scepter pulses in his hands. He's not wrong. He knows he's not wrong. The weight of sinking sickness in his gut tells him, strengthened and made even heavier by the power of the scepter. Flesh transmuted into solid iron. "How did Loki try to take the Tesseract the first time?"

"By force. And surprise."

"Yeah. And what's the only way he could possibly take it a second time, now that everyone knows he's after it, when he has no allies, no resources, and nothing else to help him?"

She blinks, and silently opens her mouth. She doesn't understand. Fuck, she doesn't understand!

"Tony, what are you talking about? The Cube is safe. It's guarded by six agents, Loki is with Thor-"

"And he's tricked us all into underestimating him! Natasha, he's convinced us all he doesn't exist! He's the Snake! Loki the Snake!"

(Everything I say is always relevant, Tony Stark. Why would I say it if it weren't?)

"It was his plan all along! He can't take the Tesseract by force now, and even if he could, who could he find to build a machine to open the portal? He needed help! He needed us! He needed us to trust him enough to let him near it, or if not trust him, at least believe he's not a threat! Why else would he spend so much time yesterday looking like an idiot trying to figure out Selvig's device if not to convince us all he had no idea how to use it? Why would he keep the portal to Asgard open for so long unless he wanted to look weak? What better way to show S.H.I.E.L.D. how harmless he is than collapsing on the carrier deck in front of everybody after his own powers got the better of him?"

All color quickly drains from Natasha's face, leaving her skin a sickly white. She gets it now. "He was setting up for the right opportunity."

"And now he has it," says Tony. "Minimal supervision, everything ready to go, Banner and Rogers out of the way. The perfect chance."

"But if he can't start up the beam on his own..."

"He can. He knows how. All he needs to do is look inside the machine and he'll know which buttons to press to turn it on. The energy will tell him. Just like that door over there is telling me right now its code is 73794. He only needed Banner to show him what to do the first time, but now that he knows..."

(Do I have anywhere near the number of clues needed to unravel your crazy web of evil plots?

Not even close.)

He spent four days in Phoenix trying to convince Loki to come back to New York to deal with the Tesseract. Four days where Loki was, at the same time, subtly convincing him that all ambition to take the Tesseract had been long abandoned.

Natasha jams her headset on, shouting out desperate commands: "Agent Richardson! Do you copy? Agent Sola! Do you copy? Agent Huang! Agent Schaefer! Can anyone hear me?!"

(A snake is small and silent and quick, and you rarely see him until it's too late.)

It's too late. All six agents on the roof... "Natasha, call Barton! Wherever he and Banner and the others are with that jet, tell him to turn it around and get back here! Then can meet me on the roof!"

"Tony, wait!" she calls after him as he sprints across the room. "You can't try to stop him alone, its-"

My fault. It's my fault. I trusted him. I brought him here. I left him alone. I asked him to stay...

(I never planned to leave.)

"I don't care! I have to try!"

(Be prepared for the worst, Tony Stark.)

Six flights of stairs, and Tony takes them all, two or three at once, in what has to be record time. "Jarvis!" he shouts as he bursts through the door to penthouse level one. "Deploy Mark Seven! Now!"

"The Mark Seven suit is currently offline," Jarvis calmly replies.

It takes a second for those words to sink in. "Off... What do you mean, offline?! Bring it back up!"

"The Mark Seven suit is currently offline."

"Since when, and why?!"

"The Mark Seven suit is currently offline."

Loki. This has to be Loki. Or a side effect of S.H.I.E.L.D. fucking around with things while he was in Phoenix, but more likely Loki. The scepter tells him it was Loki. But there's no time to fix anything now, and no way to put on the suit without Jarvis coordinating the mechanics.

"Fuck!"

Backup plan? Thor's sitting on the couch. Right where Loki was when Tony and Natasha went downstairs. He's sitting, but Tony knows before he even gets up close that Thor isn't exactly awake. His eyes are open, but pupils are widely dilated and he stares off into space neither blinking nor moving at all when Tony waves a hand in front of his face. Paralysis. Waking coma. Whatever it is, Loki did it. Tony knows.

Behind him, the door to the stairwell crashes open and Natasha flies through, heels hitting the slate floor like gunshots as she runs to join Tony at the couch and falls to her knees. "Barton's on his way," she says. "He's pretty sure he can land the Quinjet on your helipad, but they're at least ten minutes out." Her eyes land on Thor's expressionless face. "What's wrong with...?"

"Loki," says Tony. "Not sure what, some kind of magic. Try to wake him up."

"How?!"

"How should I know?" The scepter isn't telling him anything. "Punch him in the face. Dump brandy down his throat. Give him a kiss. Use your famous imagination, Anne Shirley! Whatever it takes! I'm going to the roof!"

"Then I'm coming with you!"

She tries to stand up alongside him, but Tony pushes her back down, hand on her shoulder. "No! Natasha, he'll kill you! If you go up there, he's already killed six agents, there's nothing to stop him from adding you to the death toll!"

"And you?"

I'll be okay. Loki won't kill him. Tony knows that. (Knows.) "He won't kill me. Not yet anyway. You stay here, try to wake up Thor. I'll see what I can do to stall Loki until Barton's jet arrives."

Natasha's hard-eyed glare says she doesn't like the order, but she understands it. And she'll follow it. "At least take this," she says, unclipping one of the white guns from her belt. "You might need it."

The hard plastic feels strange in Tony's hand. It hums. Not with sound, and not with any vibration, but with hungry energy that wants to escape. It tickles his skin, and not in a good way. He slides the gun into his pocket. "I hope I won't need it."

"But just in case."

Just in case. Just in case of what? In case Loki turns on him? In case Loki tries to kill him? In case Loki's too far gone, too far over the edge, and he needs to shoot him? No, he says to himself, and the word pounds in his head as he runs back to the stairwell and up to the roof. No. No. No. No. Won't do that. No. Won't need to do that. I can reason with Loki. Talk to him. Stop him.

The rooftop door is already hanging open when he reaches the top of the stairs. Framed in the crack of light, a pair of feet lies on the gravel. Black shoes. Ankles in black socks. The bottom of a pair of black pants. A body lying face down, visible once Tony pushes the door all the way open. It's surrounded by five more. Six bodies, but no blood. No trauma. Their faces, at least what Tony can see of faces on those not choking on gravel, look peaceful. However they died, it was sudden and painless.

At the far end of the roof stands Loki. He has his back to Tony as he hunches over Selvig's machine, green cape flying like a flag from his shoulders in the high wind. Sunlight glints off golden armor.

"Loki!"

"Tony Stark." Loki turns his head first, showing his snake-fang helmet in profile before his shoulders move. "You've finally come to join me."

"You psychotic bastard," Tony growls. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

"Nothing more than what I first set out to do. But you already know that, don't you?" He looks pointedly down at the scepter in Tony's hand. "How do you like your gift?"

"My..." Gift. The word strikes like an asp, filling his veins with its slow poison.

"Of course I'm reluctant to see it go, but I think it can do more for you than it can for me now. And you will need it in the days to come."

"Like fuck I will." He spits his reply. "I thought you'd given up all this King of the World bullshit. But I guess that change of heart façade was just one among hundreds of lies, huh?"

A flash of anger twists Loki's face into a shadowed sneer. "I never lied! Not to you, Tony Stark! Everything I said – everything I did – was an act of truth! Any lies you perceive are nothing more than your own wishful thinking!"

"Like going to California?!"

"When this is over," Loki answers, forcing a blanket of calm over his voice. "When my work is complete. Once I am the true king of Midgard and all have accepted my rule, we can go where you wish. It matters little to me where I place my throne."

"Jesus Christ, Loki, are you even listening to yourself?" Tony shouts. "King of Midgard? Throne?! You're crazy! Full out, delusional insane! For fuck's sake, just... just step back a second. Please, step back. This doesn't make any sense. You don't know what you're doing."

"On the contrary," he replies. Softly. Almost too softly, voice breaking on the wind. "I know exactly what I'm doing."