A/N: Hiiiiii, well, lookie that, it's been a while hasn't it. Well, I'm taking all my unfinished stories and focusing on one at a time to finish them, and this story is first! Yay!
The Avengers, Loki, Iron Man, or anything of the like. Just the thoughts inside my head, and Kaia, Gabby, and Nathan. And taking some personal freedoms with mythology and lore.
"What the hell is this supposed to mean?" Nathan stared at the disc. "He's always doing something stupid, but he never gave us this before."
"He should stop playing the damsel in distress," Clint remarked from his seat. "So, how do we find him? Dimension hopping is a little past my paygrade."
"Thanos will never allow us to find him like that anyway," Loki remarked, his hand running through Kaia's hair absently. "No, he will go back to Midgard to claim what was stolen from him the first time. He is a vengeful creature."
"So then we prepare for another attack?" Steve asked, looking between Loki and Thor. "We should go back-"
Thor shook his head. "We prepare here, this will be the first place he will come."
"How can you be so sure of that?" Bruce asked, turning his glasses in his hands. "Why would he risk coming to Asgard? Your father and an army is here."
"There is something here that he wants, something of great power," Thor told them. "Now that he has the power of the tesseract he will be able to come and claim it. We prepare and stop him."
"And we hope that Tony can do his best to hold out," Natasha said, voicing what the other were hoping.
An hour later Nathan was sitting next to Loki's bed, Kaia having fallen asleep next to her father, and turned the disc in his hand. "Have you figured it out yet?" Loki asked the teen quietly.
"I wanted to wait until Kaia was asleep," Nathan admitted. "I'm sure that you're not going to like it either." Nathan looked up to meet the god's green eyes. "He had a contingency plan, somehow, for this very problem. He has plans on here to get rid of the power of the tesseract, and to get it out of the hands of someone like Hela, or Thanos."
"Am I going to want to strangle him after I hear about it?" Loki asked, one would think much too casually. When Nathan didn't respond Loki tilted his head a little. "Nathan?"
"He wants us to destroy the arc reactor," he said softly. "More specifically he wants to destroy the power of the tesseract. If there is no tesseract, then no one can win..." Loki's eye twitched once and Nathan knew that he was putting up a mask.
"It's obvious the man was foolish when he wrote that," Loki shifted a little on the bed as he spoke. "He wants us to destroy the very thing that keeps him alive. It is times like that I wonder what I ever saw in him."
"Crazy attracts crazy," Nathan smirked a little. "Now did you want to hear the rest of what I was going to say before you start planning his inevitable death at your hands." Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "I've been in Tony's lab enough over the past two week to know some of what he hides in there. He's got a spare reactor down there, because Tony would never be content with having just one reactor."
"Are you planning to let that foolish mortal destroy his reactor?" Loki rubbed the spot between his eyes. "You two are just alike, you are aware of this correct?"
"Perfectly."
Loki had informed Thor that he and Nathan would be traveling back to the mansion to try and put Tony's plan into motion, to try and turn the tide while he worked with the guards and warriors of Asgard. He left Kaia in his room asleep, magically locking the door. He knew her, and how well she had listened to him last time.
They were gone maybe an hour, but Loki knew that something was wrong when Heimdall didn't respond and he had to take Nathan back through one of his pathways. Loki had a flashback to the last time he did that, and that it led to a chain of events that almost cost him Tony.
Nathan had grabbed onto Loki's arm when the older man suddenly stopped as they stepped into the palace "They're here," Loki hissed out. He could feel the Titan, could feel his power. That meant that Tony was here. "Go back and stay with Kaia," Loki order, grabbing the reactor from Nathan. "Stay in the room, do Not leave it." Nathan blinked then nodded, before taking off. He knew better than to argue with an upset god.
It didn't take Loki long to find out what happened, or at least what was happening. He jumped over the guards and the aliens, not stopping to see if they were alive or just unconscious. He could feel an influx of power down towards the vault. Thanos was indeed going to go after the Gauntlet first. Loki could see the doors to the vault, he saw the fighting, he could feel the presence of Thanos, but he stopped so suddenly that he almost fell forward. He also felt something else, something far more important.
"Tony," Loki practically breathed his name as he ran over to the man that was hunched over on the floor against the wall. He was pale, too pale, his hands were shaking and he was looking down, hand on his chest, one knee pulled up to his chest. He reached out and lifted Tony's head by his chin and frowned, controlling his expression when he saw two thin blood trails, one from his noise, the other from the corner of his mouth. "You stupid man."
"It's why-" he coughed, and took a couple of breaths. "What the disc says." He gave Loki a tight smile, then coughed again, putting a fist to his mouth. Loki pulled the hand away and saw the spots of blood on his hand. "You have... to do it..." He leaned his head back against the wall, trying to catch his breath. "Destroy it, Thanos will be stranded. This is going to kill me."
"It'll kill you if I do take it out," Loki growled a little. Tony grabbed Loki's hand, his hands causing Loki's to tremble as they shook.
"You can't let me go like this, not like this." Tony looked him in the eye. "Not under his control."
"I'm not letting you go yet, mortal," Loki said as he squeezed his hand and pulled out the other reactor. "You owe your life in penance to me."
"For what?" If asked, Tony would deny that his voice hitched a little higher in that moment.
"For making me with child all those years ago. You signed a lifetime contract at that point." Tony blinked once then smiled as best he could. "Now, shall we replace that before anymore damage is done?"
"You're going to have to do it, my hands aren't steady enough." For a moment Tony could have sworn that Loki actually looked a little nervous. "It's fine, just twist until it pops out," Tony said as he put Loki's hand over top the reactor. "It's like a jar of pickles, or something. Yeah, just like that." He took a deep breath, one hand on Loki's arm. "Just pull it out, put it in my lap, yeah, then just slide that in the same way."
Loki swallowed, concentrating on getting the second reactor in, but not wanting to spend too much time doing it. As he started to slip it in a large hand gripped his shoulder from behind and yanked him out of the way. His hand slipped from the reactor and he heard it slide out and hit the ground. Loki moved, sliding across the floor and standing up with two blades in his hands, slashing through the air with a deadly silence to behead the alien stupid enough to touch him. As he turned to move back to Tony he saw four more enemies waiting him. He could hear Tony fumbling for the reactor, starting to wheeze.
Loki's hands started to glow and he crouched down low before he blinked. The aliens suddenly dropped, arrows in their backs. He looked behind them frowning, before his eyes widened at who he saw. The man nodded his head once before running towards the vault.
Before he could think about it more Loki turned and ran, dropping to his knees as he grabbed the new reactor and Tony's hand, quickly sliding it into place. "You could have had better timing," Tony wheezed out, hand over Loki's as it locked the reactor in place. "When I wrote out those plans i hadn't finished the reactor, so it wasn't an option."
"You are still foolish," Loki told him as he picked up the tesseracts newest vessel. "How exactly do you propose we destroy this? It's a very powerful item, and I'm sure it will try to protect itself." They both looked over to see three of the attacking aliens fly from inside of the vault and Thor step through.
"I think that would be enough to do it." Tony nodded to Thor wielding his hammer.
"Brother!" Thor looked over and saw Loki walking towards him and hurried over. "They came not long after you left. I have been unable-" he stopped when Loki pointed over to Tony against the wall who gave a weak wave of his hand.
"You need to destroy this with Mjolnir," Loki held up the glowing reactor for him to see. "It will weaken the Titan and we will be able to capture him." Thor nodded grimly, his hand tightening around the handle of his hammer. He took it from Loki and took a couple steps back, putting it on the ground.
Loki hurried back over to Tony, bracing his arms against the wall so that his whole body covered Tony. With him being so weak, and human, the backlash that he expected from the tesseract would no doubt harm Tony more than it already did. He grunted as he was pushed forward at the sudden roar of sound and energy. Tony winced and closed his eyes tightly, feeling the shockwave pass through them. No one could miss the loud roar of anger from inside the vault. Thanos knew that he had been beaten.
Thor walked over and offered his hand to help Loki up, ad they both helped Tony to his feet, holding his arms as he locked his knees. "Go check on my niece, I think that we shall be able to handle this" Thor smiled at the two of them before leaving Loki to Tony.
Tony leaned heavily on Loki, closing his eyes a little. "Where is our little sprite?" Tony asked, slowly moving his feet with Loki.
"I locked her in our rooms, along with Nathan. I imagine that Gabby went to stay with Mother and that they both guarded the room." Loki had his arm around Tony's waist. he couldn't wait for their family to finally be reunited. It had been far too long.
Neither man was expecting to see the door to their room blown off its hinges, or to see both Gabby and Frigga lying on the floor unconscious. Tony dropped to his knees to check on the two women as Loki ran into the room. He could feel his heart beating against chest as he ran in. There was a dull roar, a rushing, in his ears as he looked around, eyes wide. The room was trashed, furniture was broken, drapes and sheets torn and burnt.
Nathan and Kaia were gone.