Tony, for once, wasn't locked away into the lab with Bruce and running calculations to reverse Extremis. Instead, he was reworking the formulas on a tablet in the kitchen, where he leaned on the counter and had a bottle of spiced whiskey at his elbow and a bowl of popcorn at his right. The bottle had been full when he started, but was mostly empty now after an evening of working the formula.

When the ripple of light passed through his living room, it barely disturbed him. Instead of looking up and acknowledging the atmospheric disturbance, he scooped up a handful of popcorn and threw it at the guest that was stepped forward. Sigyn blinked at the sudden shower of food that pelted her, flicking a piece out of her hair where it had landed. "Bruce and I were close to a break through with the last guy and I think I've got the final sequence worked out, but I want your opinion of it."

She blinked again at the rapid fire speech he was using. When she hadn't moved towards him, he glanced up and she noticed that there were dark lines under his eyes. "I-"

"Don't bother," he said flatly. "Pepper's already said it all."

Her eyebrows rose as she studied him. "She could hardly have apologized on my behalf. I am old and hardly one to judge the steps that you took to protect someone precious to you."

There was a long pause while Tony took her measure for the second time since he had met her. He had asked a question not terribly long ago and wasn't terribly surprised by the answer he had given himself or the answer he had received indirectly just then. She was here, features smooth, as she waited for an answer for the unspoken question she had posed to him. "Jarvis has those coordinates you wanted a few days ago when tall, dark, and creepy was under that spell. Will you take a look at this before you take a look at those?" he asked, pushing the tablet towards her.

"Of course."

Something eased between them as she stepped forward and slid her fingers across the tablet to throw the information into the air before her like she was using a holographic screen so that she could see Tony's formulas alongside the original as well as the biological breakdown of the "patient." For the next hour, she reviewed everything and made two small adjustments while Tony finished off his whiskey and found another bottle, but hardly did more than open it.

Finally, she swiped a hand through the shimmering letters and figures and they retreated into the face of the tablet once more. She was still staring at it when Jarvis took the minute changes she had made and whisked them away into his internal memory and wiped the evidence from the device. "You realize-" she started and then hesitated, glancing at him.

"-the biological alterations are permanent?" he finished for her and then downed the rest of the glass he was holding before spinning it across the counter to her. "Trying to reverse the effects makes the host explode, as we witnessed yesterday. Tailoring it stabilizes it and takes away the danger of explosion, but we're still not quite sure what the long-term effects are."

Sigyn eyed him for a long moment and then traced a pattern into the air that gave her another set of figures and words that Jarvis took an interest in. There seemed to be a pattern to it that he could almost understand…

"Pepper's vitals, as indicated by the spells I originally cast," Sigyn said quietly, watching the interest spark in Tony's gaze again. Then, her fingers were flashing through the spellwork, pulling a duplicate from the layers within the spells and set them side-by-side. "As it stands, she has a little under three weeks before she dies due to chemical instabilities within her biology. Removing them is ideal, but you're already tried that with another…candidate…and gotten negative results." She applied the theorems that she remembered and Tony watched as Jarvis interjected with another part that she had left out until they had applied every last part of the theoretical "cure."

A flick and a muttered word and the spell sped forward, the duplicate of the vitals steadying and the traces of fire in Pepper's blood dispersing. She took a part of the spell and twisted it around her wrist, her eyebrows going up. "Extended life span and stable powers is what I'm seeing here, assuming that everything goes correctly." Her gaze flicked to his. "If you want my help, I will give it."

"You could stop the destabilization if it were to occur?" Tony asked.

There was a long pause during which she dismissed both spells and considered how she wanted to phrase the words she wanted to use. "I can't stop the process if it starts to occur, but I can contain the process." She held up a hand in the face of Tony's tight expression. "There is another option, but it does not make use of my abilities alone."

"You want to involve tall, dark, and creepy," Tony said, tone flat.

She hesitated again. This was a sensitive matter and she knew there was no love lost on either side, that there was no trust to build upon or other such experiences between them she could draw on. It came entirely down to how much they each trusted her. Loki's trust had never been brought into question, but Tony's friendship was new, almost too new for her to want to test it like this. Still, if there was to be something to build off of for the future and if they were to save Pepper's life…

"Yes. Loki is perfectly capable of recreating the genetic structure of most species. Making a clone of Pepper would allow you to test the cure without endangering her." She paused and studied the guarded expression that Tony wore, the way that he was studying the alcohol. "Or you can take the risk of mutilating her body and hoping it takes the first time. At the very least, I would want to contain the process to a hand and forearm or foot and calf to observe the effects on her body before allowing it to take hold across the rest of her body." He flinched.

"And what's the price for that?" he asked, a hard edge to his voice when he finally looked at her.

She held her tongue on the first three responses that she could have shot off at him. He wasn't Thor and he wouldn't understand the sharp tongue she usually reserved for him when he was being particularly slow or thick-skinned. "If it is a bargain that you wish to strike, or wish it to be, then consider our help repayment for the coordinate estimates of Amora's whereabouts based on her spell." Here she paused and gave him a measured look. "Or, consider it to be what you originally offered me before we left for Asgard: Friendship."

It was Tony's turn to study her for a long moment. "Why not just wave your fingers-" she heard the sarcasm and skepticism spun into the words and had to squash the instinctive outrage "-and track her that way?"

"As you manipulate energy with your technology, so too do I do it, but without the aide of machines," she said slowly. "Aside from that, spinning my fingers to track Amora would leave me vulnerable to outside influences for an extended period of time afterwards. Loki would be left fighting Amora and her mischief and whatever she has done to Skurge as well as defending me. We do not have unlimited stores or all-seeing abilities."

Some of the anger she had seen building dissipated. "Just…answer one thing, if you can," he said and waited for her cautious nod before continuing, "Tall, dark, and creepy appeared pretty fast when things went south with the last attempt. Was he spying on us or watching you?"

"That particular spell is a scry that was centered on me."

"Creepy."

She couldn't help the flicker of a smile that flashed across her features. "Considering our history, it is sometimes necessary for us to scry each other. A lack of occasional privacy is certainly worth not falling under the influence of Fury or Amora."

Tony gave the room a suspicious look and then said, "Up yours, bag-o-cats."

There was a momentary pause and then Jarvis alerted him to an environmental distortion before a white and brown spotted goat appeared on Tony's dining table wearing a pointed birthday hat. The goat appeared unperturbed by its sudden change in circumstances as it jumped off the table and wandered over to the couch where it began to munch on the pillows.

Tony stared at it for exactly three seconds before he asked, "Are the clones sentient in any way?"

"No. They can simply exist as solid flesh and blood with no minds of their own for a certain amount of time or they can be…programed…with certain preset actions that they will cycle through for the duration of the spell. They cannot, however, stand up to sustained interaction."

"Does this have to be decided today? This isn't just my decision."

"We want to deal with Amora soon. Is the length of a day enough time?"

"I'll only need a few hours, but, yes, a day is more than long enough. You have other things to do to prepare, I take it?"

"Yes."

They studied each other for a long moment as something final settled back into place with them and then Tony was nodding, picking up the tablet, and stepping away from the counter. "Do what you need and I'll have an answer and the coordinates for you. Steve will probably want to cook dinner or something so that gives him time to order supplies or something."

She understood the offer to step back from their misunderstanding, a return to the friendship that had been so easy for them before. Whatever had fractured with the mistake, it had healed. Bargains were unnecessary, but help and the offer of were more than appreciated.

"I look forward to it, then," she said as she felt the grip of a familiar spell settle around her. She smiled at the light that flickered out and over her just before she was pulled back to Loki's location. Whatever else could be said, some things never changed.