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One day a seemingly important alarm sounded very unexpectedly and very surprisingly in the Avengers’ headquarters, ruining whatever plans anyone may have already made. Not even five minutes later everybody was on stand–by, wrapped in their respective suits.
“What is going on exactly?” Hawkeye snapped, readjusting his quiver. “What is so damn important that I had to cancel my date?”
Iron Man’s mask flew up and Tony Stark’s face emerged, smiling indulgently and looking smug.
“Just say it, Tony,” Captain America didn’t seem to be in the mood for his usual self–congratulation. Well then.
“Remember that beautiful little scanner I invented a while ago despite being repeatedly told it was a waste of time and energy?” he raised an eyebrow. He was met with a stony wall of poker faces. Nobody had the guts to respond. “Okay, fine,” he huffed. “In short, it was supposed to pick up even the slightest traces of Loki’s energy source so that we’d know if he was back in New York. Just in case.”
“And I gather from this that he’s here, yes?” sighed Captain America. “How?”
“Don’t know,” Tony beamed. “He’s at the airport, actually.”
Black Widow’s eyes went a tad wider than usual. Hawkeye less subtly swore.
“What would he want with an airport?!”
“I do not know,” Tony said slowly and elaborately. “But considering there’s a lot of people, especially foreign people, and lots of heavy and potentially dangerous machinery around, I can guess it’s not for friendly purposes.”
“Can we somehow get Thor’s ass down here?” Hawkeye got straight to business.
“I’m not sure he would be our best choice in this situation,” Captain exclaimed. “If Loki provoked him, Thor wouldn’t have any objections to destroying the airport himself and we've only just repaired the city. We need a different approach.”
“Such as?”
“We have to somehow lead him out of the danger zone, get him away from the civilians,” Captain started. “I might have a plan. I’m going to explain everything on the way, we don’t know if he’s not trying something already.”
“I’m guessing Bruce is sitting this one out, right?” Tony liked to make sure.
“I’m afraid so,” Cap smiled and rushed towards the exit.
They were all standing in one of the parking lots, ignoring the curious looks. Everything looked almost eerily normal. No unusual noises, no suspicious movements, no panic. Planes were getting in and out in the same organized manner. In other words, it didn’t seem as if anything was out of place. If one wanted a definition of perfectly normal, that’s what they would get.
“Should we be fighting anybody?” Hawkeye was fidgeting with a bow in his hand.
“He’s supposed to be inside,” announced Tony.
“Come on, then,” Cap decided and moved forward, the rest trailing behind him like a line of little ducks, trying to attract as little attention as possible. It was weird to be entering a building through regular doors instead of broken walls or windows. “Iron Man, lead the way,” Cap ordered and stepped aside once they were inside. Tony’s HUD was flashing the airport’s schematics and where Loki’s signature marked on them. It took them a while to squeeze through the crowds to the right place.
“He should be somewhere around here,” he left it at that and started looking around, his suit scanning the faces.
“There!” Black Widow shouted and started running, people jumping out of her way. Tony surveyed the direction she pointed in and indeed there was Loki. Doing a very good job at disguising himself. His hair was short and dark blond, on the verge of curling. His eyes had a different color and he was wearing plain human clothes. He was pulling a suitcase behind himself. That is until Natasha didn’t knock him down and he was forced to drop the handle. Tony managed to take note of all that in the time it took him and the rest of the team to join her. Somewhere at the edge of his brain there was an itching question as to why a guy who could shapeshift as easily as he could blink didn’t shapeshift into someone completely different and unrecognizable, but he ignored it in favor of pointing a beamer at the said guy.
“What’s going on?!” Loki shouted, raising his hands over his head reflexively. The accent was there all right and the voice was unmistakable. “Oh my god, don’t kill me!” his eyes went almost comically wide as Natasha put a knife against his throat. “I didn’t do anything!”
The sincerity of it was enough to make her hesitate a bit and something wasn’t right, because Loki would have already used that to his advantage. A second later she was as composed as ever, face a mask and the knife firmly pressed against flesh.
“What game are you playing?” she hissed at Loki, who was still trying to push himself further into the floor. “What is it this time?”
People were starting to fearfully gather around them, but at least at a safe distance. There was no saying what might happen.
“I don’t know!” Loki looked around wildly. “Please!”
They weren’t new to Loki’s tricks, but this one was so completely out of left field it almost didn’t seem like a trick at all.
“Iron Man, check the suitcase!” Cap pointed at Loki’s baggage and Tony wanted to slap himself in the face. Good ol’ Cap, always with a head on his shoulders.
Carefully, he lowered himself next to the black case.
“Jarvis, are there any explosives?” he asked. A dozen images flew over his HUD.
“There appear to be none, sir,” came Jarvis’s response. Tony furrowed his brow.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be, sir.”
“Alright then.”
He grabbed the lock and ripped it off, destroying the zipper in the process.
“Hey!” came Loki’s cry of indignation, but he ignored it. Opening the suitcase, he prepared for the worst. But unless you considered a couple of sweaters, shirts and pants weapons of mass destruction, there was nothing that looked even remotely dangerous. Tony was speechless.
“Iron Man?!” Cap urged him to report.
“Nothing!” he said through the comm and shook his head. Everybody stared at Loki, who was in equal parts very obviously scared and outraged. “What’s going on?”
Even behind his mask, Cap looked pretty uneasy. Hawkeye still wasn’t lowering his bow, pointing an arrow straight at Loki’s head. Widow started to lack conviction.
“You’re under arrest for all your crimes against Earth,” she exclaimed finally.
“Wait, what?!” Loki managed to huff out before she swiftly rolled him over and twisted his arms behind his back. “Ow, shit!”
“Iron Man, cuffs,” Cap joined in. Tony disconnected the magical shackles from his suit and handed them to Natasha, still trying to figure out what was going on. His scanner was working flawlessly and according to it, it was Loki. Without any doubt, that was his energy signature. It was weak, true, but that was because he wasn’t really using any magic. Tony still had no idea where on the magical board shapeshifting scored. “Okay, everyone! Nothing to see here!” Steve was shooing people away while Natasha put the cuffs on Loki’s wrists. Completely ignoring his protests, the Avengers escorted the villain to the headquarters.
“Hello?!” they were all watching the screens, observing Loki walk around the circular cell. “Is anybody out there?!”
“Guys, are you sure this is him?” Bruce asked finally, looking worried.
“You saw the readings yourself, doc,” Tony offered. “I showed you the scanner and it works perfectly fine.”
“That’s true,” Bruce still didn’t look completely convinced. And nobody could blame him, the way Loki was acting. “Maybe he lost his memory? Last we saw him, Thor was taking him to Asgard. Maybe he escaped? Maybe something happened?” he started speculating.
“That actually makes sense,” Tony agreed. “And that would mean we need to get Thor’s godly ass down here pronto.”
“Shouldn’t we talk to Loki first?” Natasha suggested. “Maybe make him remember?”
“You offering?” Clint asked. She looked at him in all her seriousness.
“Yes.”
“Alright, then!” Tony announced. “Natasha tries to squeeze something out of our lovely prisoner and Bruce, would you mind trying to get in contact with the big guy in the sky?”
“I’ll go with him,” Steve offered and they both disappeared behind the door, leaving just the three of them in the surveillance room.
“We’ll wait here,” Tony smiled sweetly to Natasha and clapped Clint on the back. She nodded and a few moments later they saw her enter the room with Loki’s glass prison. Tony upped the volume.
“What is going on?” Loki asked, for once not one for small talk. “Why am I being held here? I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“There is only one explanation why you are acting the way you are,” Natasha started calmly, not moving away when Loki stepped closer to the glass separating them. “Either something happened that made you loose your memory,” Loki raised his eyebrows. “Or this is a part of some other elaborate scheme you thought of in prison.”
“Prison?!” the god exclaimed. “The only prison I’ve ever been to is this one!”
“Which one is it?” Natasha continued, ignoring him.
“There is a third option, a one you people have apparently decided to jointly ignore, and that is that I’m not who you think I am! Truly! My name is Tom. Tom Hiddleston. Please, check my documents! They were all in the backpack I put on my suitcase. Please.”
Natasha looked pointedly at one of the cameras and Tony and Clint scrambled to get to the mentioned backpack. They found what Loki was talking about; the passport definitely confirmed the existence of one Thomas William Hiddleston. Except Tony was most definitely not sold. It wasn’t excessively hard even for a half–witted criminal to get themselves a fake identity and it certainly was not a feat for someone of Loki’s caliber. Knowing him, he probably could’ve created it himself. Tony made a quick work of a background check. Social networks, credit records. Well, shit.
“He checks out,” Tony said to Natasha through the comm. “Or at least he definitely looks like a normal guy with a life. I think we just really royally screwed his vacation.”
A whole plate of cookies for Natasha for not showing anything on her face. Instead she left the prison room, stormed into the surveillance one and hit Tony upside the head. Hard.
“And you’re only just telling us now?” she narrowed her eyes.
“It was an honest mistake!” he tried to shield himself from any more blows. “This still doesn’t explain the energy signature! And who am I to know Loki didn’t take to the Internet and learn to create fake people! It would be just his style to cause chaos online!”
“What you’re suggesting is that Loki chose to become a troll and this still might be him trying to pull one over on us, yeah?” Clint summed up skeptically.
“Well excuse me for not being able to read his mind!” Tony barked. “I’m still not quite there yet.”
Suddenly the whole tower rumbled.
“That would be Thor,” he declared and rushed out of the room to wait by the elevators. Not long after, the thunder god stepped out of the metal cube in Bruce and Steve’s company.
“Where is this person you speak of?” he boomed. “’Tis impossible!”
“Thor, calm down,” Bruce tried to mollify him. “Did something happen?” he asked Tony.
“Well, the guy claims his name is Hiddleston and it kinda checks out, but the scanner seems to be dead set on him being Loki.”
“My brother is safely locked inside a cell in the deepest bowels of Asgard’s dungeons!” Thor rumbled. “There is no possibility of escape!”
“Okay, then, big guy,” Tony showed the way. “After you.”
After a short walk, Thor stepped inside the prison room and stopped dead in his tracks, the rest of them gathering around him.
“Impossible,” he breathed out. Loki – or Tom, or Loki – looked up from where he was cradling his head in his hands.
“Oh, wonderful!” he exclaimed with not a small amount of sarcasm upon noticing another addiction to the team. Tony realized Thor made for a pretty unusual sight, especially up close. He had more in common with a small mountain than a person and what was with the cape? “Who made you all in charge? Can I call my lawyer? You have no right to hold me here!”
“Brother,” Thor said.
“Oh, god,” Loki – Tom, Loki – moaned. “What is going on here?”
“Is that you? I can feel you,” Thor continued, dauntless.
“Am I dreaming this?” Loki – Tom, Loki – looked around. “I’m dreaming this. I shouldn’t have taken all those sleeping pills before the flight.”
“Thor?” Tony caught the thunder god’s attention. “What is it?”
“This,” Thor hesitated and wasn’t that a strange sight. “This is my brother. But it can’t be!”
Loki – Tom, Loki – winced at the sudden outburst.
“This must be some trick!” Thor stepped closer to the glass, raised his hammer.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Loki – Tom, Loki – raising his palms, placating. “Get away with that thing!”
Thor looked at him long and hard before spinning on his heal and storming out of the room. Tony managed to catch up to him.
“Seriously, man, what the hell?”
“It cannot be my brother,” Thor said with all the certainty of the world. Or worlds. “And yet it feels like him. I must immediately travel back to Asgard and see through this madness.”
“I’m coming with,” Tony insisted and was not deterred by the looks he got. “What? Can’t blame a guy for being curious!”
And that’s how he ended up hand in hand with Thor on the helicopter pad of his tower. He was wearing an Iron Man suit, he wasn’t completely brainless.
“Heimdall, open the Bifrost!” Thor yelled at the sky and a second later they were both being ripped from the ground by a golden force. Who would have thought his first visit to Asgard would be because of someone’s identity crisis.
Thor said it was a good thing they managed to repair the Bifrost, otherwise it would be impossible for any Midgardian to go with him. They already got that speech, what with the Tesseract and all. And then they finally landed in another world. Holy shit, another world. If the suit didn’t have the vertical stabilizers, the force with which they got thrown would’ve knocked him down. Tony noticed a big golden guy – a really huge guy, bigger than Thor, okay – at the entrance. Or exit, in their case. Thor passed by him and Tony followed, staring. When he finally felt it uncomfortable, he ripped his gaze away and holy shit. Tony Stark was definitely not a poet, so the only thing on his mind right then was wow. Fucking wow. This was probably the most astonishing thing he’s seen in his entire life and that said something. There was so much gold, everything screamed wealth and luxury. And he thought he was rich. He looked Thor over. Okay, now he got it with the choice of wardrobe. He looked right at home. He understood what Loki meant with the golden prince comment now. Even the villagers looked like they haven’t skipped a day at the gym. Yeah, he could definitely see how growing up an intellectual in a place like this could screw a little with a guy’s head. Without his suit Tony could probably run around with the kids and even then he’d probably be the runt.
Twisting his head this way and that, gradually they made their way to the entrance of the prison. Which was, understandably, underground. Deep, deep underground. They passed by various cells and Tony got glimpses of Asgard’s most wicked. Never let it be said Tony Stark was a coward, but even he could admit he was glad Earth didn’t have to deal with a half of them.
Finally they stepped through another stone arch that led to yet another room and there was a sort of a melded rock and glass cube going on. If one looked at the right angle, there seemed to be all kinds of golden sigils incorporated into the glass. And inside the cell, there sat Loki. Except he also didn’t look like the Loki they all came to know. His hair was longer and knotted around the face that appeared even more sickly pale and starved than last time. Without the armor and the battle haze he looked smaller by half and even leaner. Whatever Tony expected to see – or not see, for that matter – it certainly wasn’t that. Damn, it was depressing.
“Thor,” came the dark voice that he would never admit haunted him at night for a very unhealthy amount of time. “What brings you all the way here to my humble abode?”
“Hey!” he couldn’t help himself. Didn’t he deserve a greeting as well? Or at least an insult? Loki ignored him and didn’t even look at them. Thor’s expression was pained for a few seconds upon laying his eyes on Loki. Tony could see why.
“Is this really you, brother?” Thor schooled his expression into one of determination. Loki rolled his head against the wall, for the first time since their entrance showing any kind of interest. He seemed considering and Tony did not take that as a good sign.
“I wonder,” he started then, almost purred. “What would make you say that.”
He leaned forward, leaving the support of the wall. His eyes locked onto Thor like a hawk’s. Suddenly Tony didn’t feel as safe as a few seconds ago. Suddenly Loki didn’t look like a prisoner anymore.
“We do not have time for your tricks, Loki!” Thor lost his patience. “Tell us the truth!”
Loki’s lips stretched slyly and a dark chuckle left his throat.
“And what truth would that be?”
And before Tony could stop Thor, stop him from revealing everything because in a split second it took the god to cross the room he realized Loki didn’t know, Loki did not know why they were here and they shouldn’t be telling him anything, it was too late.
“Why is there someone who shares your face on Midgard?!”
And Loki was good, Tony had to give him that, because his expression did not change in the slightest, not one bit. But there was something. Something that shifted.
“I am quite certain you would not be bothering with such grand visitations if it depended solely on looks,” Loki remarked with unusual lightness.
“Thor, don’t– ” but the thunder god wasn’t listening, for all intents and purposes acting as if Tony didn’t exist. His absolute attention didn’t sway from Loki even a bit.
“He feels like you, Loki!” Thor roared, closing in on the cell. “I felt his life force! I have never felt such thing in anyone else!”
The act was gone in a second, leaving Loki with eyes wide open and mouth hanging as if mid–sentence. And then only one word left his lips, almost too quiet to hear.
“Sigyn.”
And he was gone. Literally gone, in a blink of an eye. The symbols in the glass all burned out at the same time, leaving blackened outlines on the cell walls. They both stood there, stricken and confused until Thor regained some sort of composure and hollered angrily.
“Loki!”
Then some sort of alarm sounded and Tony thanked whoever was listening for being in the suit, because otherwise he surely would’ve gone deaf after hearing it. Not even a full minute later more than a dozen guards crowded inside the room with them, creating not a small commotion. Thor was shouting profanities around and forcefully making a path through the golden giants. Tall freaks, the whole lot of them. Tony followed in his footsteps, not wanting to somehow get stuck so much more than six feet under on an alien planet.
By the time they both reached the rainbow bridge – and who would’ve thought, it really was a rainbow – they were running. Then they both rose in the air and flew the rest of the way. Tony didn’t have time to properly say goodbye to the beauty of the realm and more importantly, to the machinery opening the Bifrost. He was sure that under different circumstances he would be sporting a boner.
He felt a yank, for a few moments his suit went into overdrive and then he was back on the roof of his tower. He didn’t have much time to get used to the shift before they were running again. They fell through the door to the surveillance room.
“What is it?” Bruce asked, looking concerned about their obviously agitated state. “What happened?”
“Loki escaped,” Tony said quickly, before Thor could start shouting again.
“So we have the real Loki right here?” Steve pointed at the monitors.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “Loki escaped just now, right in front of our faces.”
“How is that possible?!” Clint jumped down from his perch at the top of the cabinet. “Wasn’t everyone so damn sure about the prison being, and I quote here, inescapable?”
“Loki must have found a way around the sigils,” Thor declared.
“Yeah, no shit,” Tony lifted his mask up just so he could roll his eyes at him. Then he remembered. “Talking about sigils, who’s Sigyn?”
Thor huffed angrily. Okay, not a good memory then.
“What about her?” Bruce eyed them both. “What does she have to do with any of this?”
“She?” Tony furrowed his brow.
“She was my brother’s wife,” Thor explained finally. Everyone stared. “A long time ago.”
“I still fail to grasp exactly what the hell,” Barton stated. “Does it all add up somehow or did we just randomly decide to gossip about our exes?”
“You got me here, buddy,” Tony shifted his balance. “Something Loki said after Thor spilled his guts about our doppelganger here.”
He looked at the screens and yup, there he was on the bench, looking resigned as hell.
“Why are you here, then?” Bruce pushed the glasses higher up his nose. “Shouldn’t you be looking for her? Preferably on Asgard, if the myths are to be believed?”
Thor scoffed.
“Why would she be there?”
“Where else?”
“In Hel, possibly.”
“Wow, a bit harsh?” Tony exclaimed.
“Where else would you have the fallen sent?” Thor frowned at him with condemnation.
“Wait, you mean she’s dead?” Clint’s eyes widened. “Alright, please tell me I can in all honesty say that Loki literally went to hell.”
“She was naught but a mortal,” Thor sneered.
“Tell us how you really feel, why don’t you?” Tony whistled.
“I’m sorry, but who do you think Jane is?” Bruce inquired, visibly trying not to get too irritated.
“It is different,” Thor said very slowly. “Someday I intend to wed her properly. Bring her to Asgard with me, make her true queen and immortal.”
Silence fell over the room. Everyone collectively decided to ignore the insult to their race. Wasn’t the first, wasn’t the last. Lessons in political correctness weren’t the most important thing right now.
“Okay, so what,” Tony decided to go back on track. “Loki what, married a mortal gal a long time ago and how long is a long time ago exactly?” he asked, just to cover all the bases. Thor seemed to consider that for a while.
“In your time, that would be roughly a thousand years,” he dropped the bomb. Tony spluttered. Everyone else seemed more or less shocked as well.
“A thousand years,” Clint’s eyes were almost bulging out of his skull. “Just how old are you, people?!”
Thor’s face turned calculating, as if he was actually going to answer.
“Can we get back to business here?” Natasha finally put her foot down. “I’m pretty sure we have a mad supervillain on our hands and I would very much like to find out what does a marriage from a thousand years ago have to do with any of this.”
“I would love nothing more than to provide the answer, Lady Natasha,” Thor inclined his head. “But I am afraid it eludes me as well.”
“Damnit,” Clint gritted his teeth. “What do we do now, then?”
As if waiting for that precise question, all the readings on screens started going crazy. Loki’s energy scanner went haywire. A second later they all knew why and started sprinting towards the cell room. Bruce was preventively hanging back, but not far away enough to not be able to help if needed.
Thor made it first, the rest following. Tom – and it was without a doubt a real Tom, what with Loki now being in the same room and being obviously Loki – was standing defensively under the far wall. And by far wall it meant as far away from Loki as possible in the pretty confined space of the cell.
The first thing that really hit Tony was how much Loki changed in the short time they’ve last seen each other. His hair was neatly combed back and his perfectly tailored gray suit screamed elegance and easy grace. Oh, and there was a green scarf as well, of course. Pretentious bastard. Tony slammed the button opening the doors to the cell, but nothing happened. He tried again.
“Why isn’t it opening?!” Cap yelled and banged a hand against the glass. It didn’t do shit. Thor’s hammer barely managed to crack the material it was made from before; Steve’s fists were going to do squat.
“Don’t come closer,” Tom said then, directing his words at Loki. They both stood with their profiles turned to the Avengers. The similarity was striking. “Please, just stand back.”
“It’s okay,” Loki smiled and there was absolutely no malice in it. If it were possible, Tony would even say his face softened. “I know you.”
“Well, I don’t know you,” Tom raised his hands in front of himself, palms out and holy shit, Loki actually stopped. So did all of them, holding their breaths and momentarily forgetting about trying to break their way into the cell. The scene acting out before them was just surreal enough to have that effect.
“I do not think we have ever properly met,” Loki slowly put his hand on his chest. “My name is Loki. And you are?”
Tom hesitated.
“You said you knew me,” he uttered. “You tell me.”
Loki laughed, the bastard. He laughed and his laugh was pleasant. It was something Tony never thought he would experience. Ever.
“I know you,” the god confirmed. “I don’t know your name.”
For a few moments they just stared each other down, like two sides of the same coin. Tony got this absurd notion that if you took a person and pushed them through a negative, that’s what it would look like.
“Loki,” Thor said warningly. Tom looked at him quickly, but not for long, his gaze going right back to the darker clone of himself almost immediately. Nobody could blame him. He was taking it surprisingly well as it was. If Tony were in his place, he would be probably losing his shit by now. Loki ignored his brother completely.
“I’m Tom,” the guy finally gave up and the way Loki lit up at the simple introduction would be reason for a few more sleepless nights in Tony’s world.
“I did not think it possible…” Loki started, but didn’t finish. Loki at a loss for words, that was a sight to behold. “You do have her eyes.”
Tom cleared his throat and shifted a little, looking like he might run and realizing there was nowhere to run. Thor raised his hammer, ready to smash everything to pieces if he only got a good enough reason. As if a psychopathic magical mass murderer in a glass cage with a helpless civilian wasn’t reason enough.
“I’m, uh, not sure what you mean,” Tom laughed nervously and one of his hands went up to run through his hair. Loki’s eyes flicked to the movement and a small, fond smirk graced his lips.
“I apologize,” the trickster lowered his head. “Perhaps I should have begun by having said we are of the same bloodline.”
Everyone froze. Even though nobody said anything, Tony could swear you could hear thoughts racing through the heads of every person in the room. Tom paled visibly, his skin color now even closer to resembling the white of his shirt.
“Excuse me?”
“You are a descendant of mine in a line I have assumed extinct a long time ago,” Loki continued. “A line I have created with my beloved wife years ago. A line slaughtered by order of the house of Odin.”
“Loki!” Thor’s voice echoed in the room. He sounded both angry and desperate. This time neither Tom nor Loki spared him a glance. Tony furrowed his brows. Slaughter?
“This is crazy,” Tom announced. “You get how crazy that sounds.”
Instead of starting a bloody rampage, Loki only smiled patiently.
“It might,” he said. “Yet I tell the truth. And I believe I speak for everyone present in this room when I say that is a rare occurrence indeed.”
“That is…” Tom raised his eyebrows, confused and worried at the same time. “A lot to take in.”
“If you allow me,” Loki took a slow, careful step forward and Tony almost physically felt everyone in the room tense. When Tom didn’t stop him, he crossed the cell and stood in front of him. The differences became more obvious that way. The contrast of their hair, the skin tone. Tom seemed a bit leaner, Loki looked slightly taller. The god raised one hand very steadily. Tom did not let it out of his sight. “May I?” Loki inquired, palm motionless next to Tom’s head. After a moment of uncertainty, he nodded and the god’s hand landed lightly on his cheek. He must’ve done something, because a second later Tom closed his eyes and gasped, his knees buckling a little.
“No!” Thor roared and swung Mjölnir at the glass, striking it powerfully. The blow created a crack. Tony tried the opening buttons and switches again; he tried to override whatever it was that was stopping the doors from sliding apart.
And then suddenly Tom’s eyes snapped open and he breathed in deeply, Loki’s hand falling away. They looked at each other for a long while, gauging each other’s reactions. Thor stopped mid–swing, Tony froze with his palm pointed at the console, having decided to blow it up as the last resort. Clint was standing by, with a bow still loaded. Is that how you called it? Loaded? Stretched? Whatever. Something shiny peeked from behind Natasha’s fingers and Steve had a hand wrapped around the handle of a gun.
“You are telling the truth,” Tom breathed out finally. A pause. “So you’re my grandfather, huh?” a small, unsure and anxious smile appeared on his lips. Loki chuckled, amused.
“There are so many grands,” he added and still very carefully, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the other man. After a shocked moment, Tom slowly returned the hug. Loki clung to him with a barely concealed desperation. It was almost heartbreaking to watch and it almost made Tony forget he was the bad guy. Reunion or not, still a criminal. Goddamnit, don’t tear up. Shit, it was an allergy. Had to be. He noticed Thor’s sagged shoulders and the averted gazes of his teammates, just as uncomfortable with the turn of events as he was.
At last Loki leaned back, his hands still on Tom’s shoulders, an arm’s length from each other.
“You need to tell me everything about yourself,” he stated. “About your life. Your family,” he smiled. “There is so much I have missed.”
“It’s a good thing I talk quite a lot, then” Tom said, quietly amused.
“Are you ready to leave this wretched place?” Loki raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, yes,” Tom let out a relieved breath, almost emanating gratefulness. “Please.”
By the time Tony opened his eyes after a blink, they were both gone. The rest of them stood there like a bunch of children. Speechless and completely dumbstruck.
“Well, I’m not telling Bruce about this,” he proclaimed and shut his faceplate.