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It wasn’t as though the concept of death threats was all that foreign to Tony. Even before becoming Iron Man, he’d gotten his fair share of them on a semi-regular basis. It was all part and parcel to having been the man behind a weapons business, innovating all new and interesting ways to turn people into hash. Sort of came with the deal. Even before officially taking over Stark Industries, while he was still going through school there had been probably a rather disturbing amount of death and dismemberment threats mixed in with the fan mail and crushes. Probably. He’d become inoculated to the idea pretty early on, so his feel for what was normal and what was not was going to be skewed.
But even his skewed ideas of what counted as a death threat, and what counted as a notable death threat was having trouble with what he’d found on his balcony.
“And how long has this been here, JARVIS?”
“Just before dawn, sir.”
“Uh huh. And no idea of how it got here, exactly?”
There was the briefest of pauses, a sure sign of consternation from the AI. “Not as such. As best as our equipment has been able to determine, there was no visible or audible method of transportation and delivery. I am analyzing the records now to see if there were any less obvious disturbances, but—“
“So far nada.” Tony sighed, and rubbed his face. A few years back he might have been a lot more disturbed. Not by waking to find an admittedly inventive and very determined death threat on his balcony, but by the fact that there was no real obvious way that it could have gotten there. No breaking and entering, no low flying helicopters swooping in to drop off the grisly gift, not even a catapult set up in the streets to fling it up to him. These days, though, options which he would have only thought of as plausible in fantasy and sci-fi novels were actually options. Teleportation, a quick rift in reality, the ‘gift’ not actually being there but an illusion, just straight up magicked into place…
When had his life gotten so intensely strange?
He glared at his early morning mystery.
Why a cow, though?
He’d watched gangster movies, so he’d seen some odd – and he thought – entirely fictional methods of intimidation. Even there, though, they usually stuck to parts of an animal. This was an entire cow, very dead, lain out on his balcony, forty plus stories up, with no sign of how it was transported there or by whom.
He hadn’t even had his coffee, yet.
“Alright, then, I guess… we clean this up and… do the rounds to see who might have it in for me this week. And let me know if anything even slightly odd turns up on any of the recorded material.”
“Of course, sir. I presume you would also like to increase the parameters for the recordings taken in case of any future visitations?”
“On the ball this morning, J. Tell me, who would we call about getting a cow out of the building?”
“I believe Ms. Potts is the usual go-to for unusual situations.”
“… I think we should go for the unusual, then. I don’t need two death threats quite this early in the morning.”
—•—
In the end nothing of much consequence was found in any recordings taken at the time the cow appeared on his balcony. Nor were they able to dig anything up on the ‘shady characters that might currently have a personal grudge against Tony Stark’ front.
Nothing which would lead to the random ‘gifting’ of a dead bovine at dawn, anyway. Hammer was out there and doing his thing, but was also embroiled in some sort of nonsense in Iceland. How the man was finding ways to get in trouble there was something he decided did need attention – Iceland had volcanoes, better not leave Hammer alone too long – but also had nothing to do with his own weirdness. Any other bad guys they already had pretty good tabs on, and none of them were prone to farm animal murder, so Tony was left just as clueless as the morning when the cow had appeared.
Still, he kept his guard up, fully cognizant that this might be the opening salvo of someone entirely new, and if so then he had no idea of what to expect next, or when it might come.
Just another fun facet to being such a well-known battler of evil.
Days, weeks, and finally a month went by, and nothing more transpired which could even vaguely be linked to the cow.
He considered telling others in the Avengers gang about his odd morning, ask them their opinions, see if anyone else had experienced some strange breakfast offerings… But every time he seriously thought about broaching the subject, his tongue turned to lead.
There was just no way to bring up ‘dead cow on balcony’ without it coming across a little bit like a brick thrown in the face of regular conversation. Which he normally didn’t have any problem with, but… no. If nothing else happened besides the cow on the balcony, he’d keep it to himself. It would just be one of those odd little mysteries and he’d move on. He’d bring it up to the others if something else happened.
Maybe.
—•—
Tony stared, unmoving. It was a little bit debatable whether or not even his thoughts were moving all that much. It felt as though his brain had given him the human equivalent of the blue screen of death and he was going to have to perform a hard restart in order to function again.
“… J,” he managed eventually. “Anything on this newest little… grotesquery?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Not even on the newly expanded factors of what gets recorded?”
“Nothing so far, sir. It would appear that in addition to a flair for the dramatic, whoever it is who is leaving these little gifts, they are also very inventive in their delivery.”
“And very irritating.” He sighed, and despite the initial instinct to back away from the newest wrinkle in his apparently ongoing mystery, he leaned in to get a good look at what exactly had been left this time.
It wasn’t another cow. That wasn’t nearly as much of a relief as it could have been, considering the member of the animal kingdom which had been left instead of a cow.
Tony had never been 100% positive on the differences between alligators and crocodiles. Something about the jaws was meant to be one of the most surefire ways to tell the difference, but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. There was also where they lived – salt water vs fresh? – but that acid test didn’t help him either, considering the poor beast was lain out on his balcony. He was pretty certain that crocodiles got considerably bigger than alligators… but this one was middling size, overall, so that could go either way. The only thing he was more or less certain about was that it wasn’t a caiman. He was pretty sure he remembered those stayed small. Relatively.
He was also certain that this specimen, whichever particular reptile it turned out to be, was very, very dead.
Unlike the cow which had turned up on his balcony whole and intact – and on closer inspection, no real evidence of how it died – this animal had been displayed for him in pieces. The fact that it was all done very neatly and fairly bloodlessly ironically made Tony’s blood run colder than if it had been a reptilian slaughter outside his window. There was a deliberateness to this which just spoke of calculation to Tony. There was some strange motivation behind this which he was having no luck grappling with or understanding, but it was focused.
The alligator – or crocodile – had been gutted, and its abdomen cleaned out of all the viscera. As well as all the guts, the poor thing’s head had been removed, though that was left on the scene as well, while the organs were nowhere to be seen. There was no blood to be seen at all, which led Tony to think that it had been hung and bled out, like a farm animal before being butchered. All very neat and tidy… in a morbid way. And other than being dead, it looked healthy enough. At least insofar as Tony could tell. It didn’t look wasted, all the scales were intact and vibrant, the teeth in the head were all there…
Why was his balcony becoming a menagerie morgue?
“The same process for this specimen as the last, sir?”
“Yeah, and any other tests you can think to run on it. Also run a search on any cultures that do or at any time in their past give dead animals to people. In any context.”
“My search will be limited to those cultures which are Earth-bound,” JARVIS pointed out. “The information on minutiae of cultural norms of extraterrestrials is woefully lacking, even in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files.”
The fact that that was something which might hamstring the search felt a little bit insane, but that was the world, or worlds they lived in now. “Run it as best you can, J. If we find nothing at all, then we’ll know we’re either dealing with an exchange student or a complete sociopath.”
“Or both. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“…True. Let’s just hope it’s only one or the other.”
“Glad to see that we’re setting the bar so high, sir.”
—•—
If trying to find a good way to introduce the idea of a mystery cow appearing out of nowhere and onto his balcony was awkward, doing the same with a dead alligator-croc was one hundred times worse.
How, how was he meant to bring it up to anyone and have them take it seriously? Tony had a vague idea that no one would, and he would still be left to his own devices to solve the mystery, only with quiet sniggers going on the background as a bonus. Of course Tony Stark would have this sort of problem, but it wasn’t serious, was it? It was just… strange. And comical.
He didn’t tell anyone. Again. It was just easier to keep it to himself, and really, it wasn’t serious. Not yet. He’d figure it out for himself, rather than have everyone on the team good naturedly but annoyingly trying to puzzle out what it was that Tony had done to earn this sort of bizarre attention.
Until he did figure it out, there was plenty more to hold his attention. It wasn’t as though his life was without distraction, after all.
—•—
Another sign of how strange Tony’s life had become was how going out into battle was actually becoming something of a release. Where before the idea of going out and risking life and limb, of going out and saving people who, in all honesty, he might not be able to save would have saddled him with performance anxiety large enough to park an aircraft carrier in, now he went into battles almost gleefully. It was a chance to blow off some steam, a place where the lines between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were almost always clear cut, and it shook off the doldrums.
It was certainly a convenient excuse to get out of the board meetings he wasn’t able to wiggle out of any other way.
Today’s ne’er-do-well was a frequent flyer, which gave the whole situation just an extra touch of familiarity which was nice. Loki was up to some sort of shenanigans again. What exactly he was up to was a little unclear – fairly typical, really – but he was causing a ruckus downtown, so the available Avengers suited up and headed out to contain the chaos.
It was only himself, Thor and Nat out on this particular call, but then Loki didn’t seem to be up to anything very serious. That seemed to be more and more the case these days as well, where Loki would get up to trouble just for the sake of it. Tony rather got the impression that the man was bored and stirred up trouble to break the monotony, and the rest of them kept him on the Avengers’ Naughty List out of habit rather than real belief. A couple of them might believe that it was only a matter of time before Loki got up to something truly nefarious again, and the general public was far from forgiving the once-would-be conqueror, but generally…
Loki had apparently decided that frogs were the order of the day, and had let loose thousands of the creatures into the streets. It wouldn’t have been too bad had they been normal frogs. Annoying and vaguely horrifying as the amphibians went up against New York traffic in a giant, graphic depiction of Frogger, but harmless to the human population.
But Loki was nothing if not inventive in his random bouts of boredom and how he chose to relieve it. The frogs were all giant, ranging from the size of a border collie to that of a minivan. They were different species of frogs, as well, some the recognizable garden variety, some the very round lumps which would normally blend in seamlessly on logs, others the leggy, slender frogs that liked to climb and stick to things – buildings in this case.
It was comical in its own way, and Tony was guilty of breaking into a small grin inside his helmet at the sight… but some of those frogs were eyeing the people fleeing in a disturbing way, and looked big enough to make a fair try and swallowing any citizens that got too close. And a couple of the climbers looked suspiciously like arrowhead frogs, and Tony didn’t even want to know what that much toxin would mean for the city if any rubbed off.
Loki, meantime, was standing in the middle of it all, looking pleased as people ran in all directions and his slippery friends hopped about in random directions, not under Loki’s direct control. From what Tony could see, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of a plan beyond general chaos.
Tony remembered the early days of Loki’s solo career on Earth very well, and so did his bones. Random mischief was far preferable.
“Nat, Thor, why don’t you take care of the toads and getting people to safety. I’ll take care of Mean Bean.”
The other two peeled away from him to do just that while Tony continued heading Loki’s direction. Once there might have been some argument on Thor’s part, insisting that he should be the one to take on his own brother. But even Thor seemed to have caught on to how little investment Loki had in his ‘evil schemes’ anymore, and was more willing to let others take the lead tackling the mage. It was a little like reprimanding a naughty child at this point. Just one with magical powers.
Life was weird.
“Hey there, Attenborough,” Tony called as he pulled to a stop, hovering a little over and behind where Loki had taken position. “What’s with the wildlife show? The zoo not have enough of these guys, you decided to bring your own?”
Loki turned, not looking at all surprised to see Tony. He hardly ever did, really, and his grin was one of familiarity rather than ridicule. It was almost friendly, and Tony felt far from threatened when faced with the ‘villain.’
“The lives of you mortals seem so very dull and drab,” he drawled out lazily. “You might consider this a public service, shaking you all out of your dreariness.”
Tony made a show of looking around them at the chaos resulting from the introduction of oversized frogs to the city. It wasn’t as much as might have been expected, really. There was some running and the occasional scream, but nothing like pandemonium. Despite Loki’s stated goal, Tony suspected that New Yorkers were adapting and getting used to this sort of thing. And since the frogs weren’t actually going after anyone or causing destruction, they rated pretty low as threats went. Even if they were gigantic.
“Is that going to be the line from now on? ‘Doing a public service’?” He had the faceplate of his helmet retract so he could pull faces at the smirking mischief maker. “You know if you wanted to audition for the Avengers team all you had to do was ask. Thor’d probably give you a glowing recommendation.”
Loki scoffed, sounding close to a laugh. “You really think so? I don’t see him going so far out of his way to try and welcome me back into any folds these days.”
“That’s just because you don’t hear him talking about you all the time,” he said, and it was true. Whenever Thor got to talking about Loki – and they weren’t actively fighting at the time – it was almost a little gross how dewy he could get over fond memories and hopes for the future. “Give him reason to believe your sincerity and he’ll be swinging for the fences for you.”
Loki was remarkably good at Earth turns of phrase, but that one must have stretched even his knowledge. He went a little blank faced, staring through Tony for a moment as it processed. He shook his head. “Even if my fool of a sibling were to decide that I’m still worth the trouble of trying to redeem, I highly doubt that the same could be said for the rest of your little band. I shall simply have to content myself with the little services I can render as I am.” He motioned around them with his scepter, recalling Tony to the fact that he was actually holding it. It was far too easy to fall into conversation with Loki. Wasn’t he meant to be neutralizing the mage somehow…?
While Tony was trying to work out when he’d lost the thread of how the situation was meant to unfold, Loki peered back up at him. “As for the rest of your little band, are you certain you’re not putting so much focus on the public good that you’re forgetting to care for yourselves?”
It was Tony’s turn to take a couple seconds to process before he could answer. “It took a little while to get Thor on board fully with how a can opener works, but I think he’s got the hang of it now. Hardly any cans torn in two. Gotta say, though, the brotherly concern is truly inspiring when you’re not trying to kill each other.”
“Were we truly trying I can promise you that someone would be dead by now,” Loki said primly, with the kind of coldness which made Tony believe him. Casualties might not have been Thor or Loki themselves, but someone would have been caught up in their nonsense. “And in any case, I’m in no way concerned about my brother starving.” He leveled his eyes on Tony, sending him the sort of piercing stare which, all things considered, probably ought to have been being leveled on him for the entire duration of the ‘fight’ so far.
Tony blinked. “You’re… worried about me?”
The mage shrugged. “Of your entire team, you seem to be the least able or willing to look after yourself. Is it so strange that one should inquire after the well-being of a business associate?”
There was so much that was strange about it that Tony thought he was going to choke while trying to list them all. “Not gonna lie here, Lokes, yeah, it’s just a little bit out there. You taking a sudden interest in my well-being has got me more worried than when you’re throwing minivans at my head.”
“Well, at least I know what it takes to make you sit up and take notice now,” he replied with a grin. “We can’t have you growing too accustomed to my methods, lest they lose all their effectiveness.”
Tony struggled to come up with a retort or rejoinder which didn’t sound either petulant or like a blatant come on, but thankfully he wasn’t left flailing for very long. Loki tilted slightly, as though looking behind Tony, and clucked his tongue.
“It would appear that your comrades have dealt with their portion of this fiasco. We’ll have to continue this conversation at a later time.” He smiled up at Tony, moving his scepter in a familiar way before his frame began to dissolve into the air. Just before he disappeared completely, he called out, “Remember to eat, Stark!”
Tony was left staring, completely bewildered, at the spot where Loki had been standing, and very glad when it turned out that neither Natasha or Thor had heard what Loki had said as he faded away. He wouldn’t even know where to begin in trying to explain it.
—•—
The time between the second and third animal’s arrival was considerably shorter than that of the first and second. He couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than if it had taken a lot longer, or what it might mean overall – but that wasn’t too concerning, since he hadn’t even decided what the dead animals meant at all as yet. He also couldn’t decide if this animal, having arrived in a fairly similar state of butchery as the last, was more or less disturbing than the croc-o-gator.
On one hand, it was a more familiar shape, being a bird. He’d seen dressed down birds plenty in the form of chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, either raw or cooked. On the other hand, a lot more had gone into the preparation of this animal, considering the amount of plucking which had gone into it… even more so when considering its size.
“Help me out here, J, it’s hard to tell without the plumage or the head. We know what kind of bird this is?”
“It’s a little outside my normal expertise, but I believe this to be an ostrich, sir.”
“Uh huh… Ostrich.” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. Why did they have to keep showing up at dawn, as well? Was it just an extra layer of torture in trying to make him think before he was properly awake? “I feel like maybe there’s some sort of message being conveyed by the combination of animals being sent, but damned if I can figure it out. What do a cow, a crocodile and an ostrich have in common?”
“Several things come to mind, sir, but none which seem to illuminate the situation.”
“Doing better than I am,” Tony grumbled. “I’m having better luck figuring out what’s different about them. I’m half expecting a shark to end up on the balcony, cover another major class of the animal kingdom.”
“One shudders to think of the specimen which will be used to represent insects.”
“Or arachnids,” Tony agreed, doing his best not to think about how those might be parted out. “And nothing new found on the recordings?”
“No, sir.”
“Alright… The usual workup, I guess. Also go through all of the news and online chatter, see if there’s anything which pops up about a missing ostrich? I doubt anything will ping, but cows and even alligators can be found wild within country. An ostrich would almost have to be taken from somewhere where they keep track of the numbers. It might pop up.”
“Unless our mystery butcher is importing their wares.”
“I’m hoping that whoever is doing this doesn’t think I’m special enough to quite warrant that much trouble.”
Considering how much trouble they were going to already, it didn’t seem very likely that that was where they would draw the line, but he had to hope for some sort of break in this weirdness.
—•—
“Sir, I’m sorry to wake you so early, but I think you should proceed directly to the kitchen before beginning the day. I’ve already set the coffee pot to heat up and it will be ready momentarily.”
“…there’s something waiting for me on the balcony again, isn’t there?”
“There is indeed. I commend you on your foresight, today’s addition is indeed aquatic.”
“Is it a shark?”
“Not this time, no.”
“…is it a whale?”
“Thankfully not, as I doubt the balcony structure would bear quite that much strain.”
“Alright, alright. Coffee first, thank you.”
It probably would have been better to add something a little stronger to his coffee before heading out to the balcony. It wasn’t a shark or a whale, but there were plenty of large and strange looking things which lived underwater and which a man just woken up shouldn’t be forced to deal with, coffee or no coffee.
“And this would be…?”
“An ocean sunfish, sir. A good size for its type, as well.”
Tony snorted. He hoped this was a good size for a sunfish, since it looked to be close to eight feet without the fins. Even if this wasn’t the whale JARVIS worried about, it was probably putting a little strain on the balcony.
At least this one wasn’t parted out at all. He didn’t want to think of just how much sushi a fish that size would make.
—•—
It was amazing the sorts of things one could become accustomed to, given enough time and repetition. Tony probably had an unfair and unfortunate advantage in that sense, as he could and did become accustomed to things very, very quickly. Even, it would seem, finding dead animals on his balcony in the morning. JARVIS didn’t even need to break it to him gently anymore, just wake him as normal and rattle off the species and condition if there happened to be a new arrival, just like it was another aspect of the weather. It was still objectively strange, no doubt, and Tony wasn’t going to give up on the investigation into where they were coming from and why… but it didn’t feel quite as threatening or urgent anymore.
There was no real escalation so far as Tony could see, and nothing other than the animals which was out of the ordinary. Well, more out the ordinary than usual…? There was nothing else happening which appeared related or was making Tony sit up and take notice.
If things had just continued on as they had been indefinitely, then who knew if Tony wouldn’t end up thinking of the whole things as just a strange new wrinkle in his routine. With no new clues and no escalation, there was nothing to go on, and almost no reason to bother.
That was before he walked into a dozen freshly killed and plucked chickens spread across his kitchen counters.
“Inside now?”
“So it would seem,” JARVIS replied blandly.
Tony huffed a frustrated breath. If this was meant to re-arrest his attention, then it had worked. Intellectually he knew that finding the animals inside wasn’t all that different to finding them just outside his balcony. At least not in the manner they’d been appearing outside. There was nothing to suggest that the one delivering them had in any way been unable to enter before. So far as he or JARVIS had been able to determine, the one leaving the animals could have come inside anytime they wanted. There was little enough difference in the level of security between his balcony and his living room that one was just as likely as the other.
But actually walking out and seeing the evidence that someone had been inside while he had been asleep was deeply disturbing. No better was the certainty that there would be no more evidence for this little offering than there had been for any of the others.
Worst of all, though, was the fact that the asshole had made it impossible to get to his coffee maker until the birds were cleaned up. Dealing with this new level of nonsense without caffeine was just sadistic.
“The usual procedures I presume, sir?”
Tony bit back the first sniping response which leapt to his tongue. None of this was JARVIS’ fault, he didn’t deserve to have frustrations taken out on him. “Yeah… yeah, the usual. With a little more attention given to disinfecting the area. Also, do a deep scan on all other areas of the Tower. It would just be embarrassing if this turned out to be a very elaborate distraction technique and spy cams were getting installed in inconvenient places.”
“A very good point. Might I also suggest that you take it upon yourself to check my coding as well for tampering?”
There was a terrifying thought. He put it on his high-priority list, to come immediately after something caffeinated. He could put up with a lot, but not someone messing around with his bots or his AI.
—•—
Inside the apartment became the new staging area for any new gifts of dead and dressed animals. Thankfully there was nothing as unwieldy as a whole cow – or as strange as an eviscerated alligator. Whoever was leaving the animals seemed to have decided to switch to more run-of-the-mill game, sticking to chickens, turkeys, small pigs... all of them neatly bled out and dressed down, like they were being presented as meat stores.
Tony didn’t really become as accustomed to the new routine as he had the last, and in fact was kicking himself quite roundly for having become as unconcerned as he had before being shaken up again. He should have found something by now to lead him to whoever was doing this and why. Dead animals inside his apartment should never have become a thing in the first place, and it was all down to his own laxity on the matter that it had progressed this far.
Thankfully the animals seemed to be the only thing which the mystery person was doing. No devices were found left to pilfer secrets, the bots were all as incompetent as ever, the suits all safely locked down, and JARVIS’ code was untampered with. Dead animals seemed to be the entire point of someone breaking into his home.
Unless part of the point was also to drive him insane. If so, then it was working rather well, if slowly. Whoever was behind the weirdness was sadistic as well as unreasonably clever.
The morning he woke up to find three dead rabbits in his bed, at the foot, was the same day when he decided it was high time to get the rest of the Avengers team on board with what was going on. The whole situation was straying rather unsettlingly into horror movie territory, and that was not his genre.
Ironically, the same day he decided to tell his teammates what was going on in order to get their input and solve the mystery, was the same day when it was solved for him.
—•—
“Sir, we have a visitor.”
Tony looked up from his tablet. He hadn’t been concentrating on his surroundings for the last hour or two, spending more thought on how he was going to present his puzzle to the others. It was another small failing of his, he ought to have been scripting something of the kind for weeks, but stubbornness kept him from even seriously considering the idea of sharing his problem with the others. Now he was paying for it with crunch time.
MIT had been easier in terms of homework.
“That right?” He asked with a stretch. “Obviously someone without the password to the clubhouse, otherwise they’d already be inside. Who’s visiting?”
“As a matter of fact, sir– “
“He is already inside,” interrupted a smooth and altogether familiar voice. Tony jerked to his feet just in time to see Loki, sans helmet or scepter but otherwise fully kitted up, walk around the corner and survey his living room. “But far from a member of your ‘club.’”
Tony’s heart raced – which he didn’t appreciate, that tended to hurt – as did his thoughts, taking stock of where his weapons were, calculating how long it would take for a suit to reach him, how quickly Loki might be able to loose a spell when he didn’t have his scepter ready at hand. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the mage in his living space, but the first time hadn’t left Tony wanting to repeat the experience.
Thankfully his mouth could run just fine on auto. “Maybe not yet, but you know I keep telling you that if you’d like to apply…”
“I doubt that I would be able to drum up the requisite number or quality of references to satisfy your hiring manager.” It was said without heat, off the cuff as Loki continued to look around the room. Tony wondered at that a little. It wasn’t as though his living room needed that much scrutiny. He got the impression that Loki not looking at him, rather than actually taking in any of the surroundings.
Tony made no such similar show of disinterest, keeping his eyes locked on the mage until he had a better idea of what was going on and why he was there.
“Are you kidding?” He fidgeted a little with the tablet still in his hands, hiding the fact that he was flicking through screens to queue up the interface controls to his suits. If the situation escalated, he wanted his suits to at least be warmed up. “You’ve seen the team we’ve got. You think Fury is all that concerned about the purity of any of us?”
“Maybe not your purity, but your biddability is certainly something which he values. I think he knows that commanding the level of compliancy he would demand out of me would be more work than it is worth.”
“… I think I’m insulted. Did you just call me easy?”
It got Loki’s mouth to twitch up into a semi-smirk. “In some ways, yes, and I hardly think that’s a revelation to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with you.” Finally he turned his head to look at Tony directly, the smile dissolving by the time his eyes locked with Tony and turning into a scowl. “In other ways, I believe you are one of the most frustrating people I have ever met.”
Tony’s eyebrows shot up. Given what he knew about some of the people Loki had to deal with his whole life – including Thor – that was rather impressive. “That right? What did I do to earn such a high distinction?”
“Absolutely nothing, and that is the point.” Loki snarled, approaching now in high agitation. Tony didn’t back away, but he tensed, the shout for JARVIS waiting at the back of his tongue.
Loki was glaring at him, angrier than Tony had seen him in a long while. The vast majority of his appearances lately had all been more on the side of mischief than evil, and his demeanor more of amusement than rage.
“Are you completely stupid,” the mage demanded, still approaching. “Or are you so wildly incompetent that you can’t manage even when things are handed to you?”
Tony blinked, mind going blank. “If you go through my history I think you’ll find that I tend to do very well—“
“Which apparently has no bearing whatsoever on your current ability to take care of yourself,” Loki snarled in response. He stopped, still about five feet away, thankfully, but still uncomfortably close while Tony was outside his suit. The feeling of vulnerability only spiked when Loki pointed a finger at him. “You still aren’t eating properly. How is it that you’ve gotten to the age you have, let alone the position of power you hold, and still not have the necessary skills to eat?”
Tony’s mouth fell open, brain grinding to a complete halt. Without thinking he looked down at himself, the only semi-coherent thought floating around his skull being something along the lines of, ‘Do I look skinny or something?’
When he looked back up, Loki was still glaring at him darkly, though he had dropped his hand.
“W… What makes you think I’m not eating? Have you been spying on my lunch times or something?”
“It’s clear enough for anyone with eyes that you are not getting the optimum level of nutrition – or of sleep, but that’s a separate matter. Having the ability to feed yourself comes first!”
It slowly began to dawn on Tony that Loki was sounding almost… concerned. This wasn’t the raving of a man who was bent on killing or even defeating him in some future plan. He actually sounded a bit like Pepper, especially in the early days after hiring her. She would also yell at him for his dietary and sleep habits.
He licked his lips, the possibly suicidal urge to laugh bubbling up in his chest as he asked, “Loki… are you worried about me?”
“You are barely maintaining yourself enough to remain fully functional, Stark. It shows in practically everything that you do, including any time we meet on the battlefield, and I will not have it.”
His lips gave a treacherous twitch. “That doesn’t exactly answer my question, you kn– “
He cut off when Loki took another step towards him, body language clearly projecting that he still wasn’t happy, nor felt the same stirrings of humor at the situation. “You have no idea how to properly care for yourself,” he growled. “Unacceptable for any man, let alone a warrior, and as none of your club seems to have any interest in teaching you to care for yourself, that task falls to me. If I have to witness this barbarity any longer…”
“You’re going to what now?” Tony wasn’t sure where this was going, but he almost preferred it when Loki came in attacking.
A long fingered hand disappeared into the folds of Loki’s coat, Tony’s eyes following carefully, and came out with a small surprise.
“This,” Loki said, holding the gift aloft in front of Tony for him to see. “Do you see this? Do you know what it is?”
“Uhh…” Tony looked at the small, sad little scrap of grayish orange fur held in Loki’s hand, not sure he did know what it was. Surely it wasn’t a…
“A squirrel?”
It was a squirrel. A very dead gray squirrel, which for some reason Loki was holding in front of his like an accusation, and which he had been carrying around inside his coat. How long had it been in there…?
“This is the most simple and easy prey for a hunter to take down,” Loki said, tone still angry but speaking slowly, as though making certain that Tony would understand. “Even children are able to catch them when they are first beginning to learn to draw a bow. Surely even you should be able to manage one of these!”
Tony stared at the squirrel blankly. Without any active input from his brain, his mouth ran with whatever it could. “You hunted a squirrel for me? You expect me to hunt for my food? Oh, good god, have you been the one leaving dead animals this whole time?”
That last question involved such a shock of realization that it shook Tony out of his stupor. It affected Loki as well, who lifted his chin at the accusation defiantly. “As I said, you are obviously inadequate– “
“Hey, hey!”
“– to the task of bringing down your own meals,” Loki went on blithely. He was still holding out the squirrel. “Such a state of affairs can’t stand as it is, and no one else is willing to set themselves to the errand – or if they did, they did a shocking job of it.”
“… so you’re teaching me to care for myself by bringing me dead, very raw animals to eat?”
“One must begin small,” Loki said with a sniff. “I had hoped you would simply take the hint, get the idea and we could proceed smoothly from there. But it seems I overestimated your capacity even that much.”
“Okay, ignoring all the craziness of this, and believe me, that’s a big ask at this point, how was I meant to get the idea to hunt for my own food by a parade of random dead animals landing on my balcony?”
Loki waved his hand, thankfully the empty one. Seemingly tired of holding out the dead squirrel to Tony indefinitely, that hand finally lowered back to Loki’s side. “It was not meant to be a puzzle, oaf. Just a simple nudge to get you moving in the proper direction.”
“Uh, again, how–?”
“Enough of this!” Loki’s eyes flashed, and Tony was abruptly aware of the tablet in his hand again, of the simple swipe of its screen which would call the entire suit army up to him. If he needed it.
“Enough of your foolishness, enough of your inadequate care, and enough of teaching from a distance! You will be better taken of! You will learn to hunt properly, Stark, and spare me the sad image of you on the battlefield, underfed and sleepless!”
Loki must have taken another step forward without Tony noticing, because the next time Loki thrust the squirrel his direction, he thumped Tony in the chest with his knuckles. Tony took the sad bit of fur more out of surprise than anything else, but Loki seemed a little gratified.
“Clear your schedule for the next week of mornings, Stark,” Loki said in a tone which was suggestive of a threat. “You will be learning something new.”
And the mage disappeared.
Tony stared at the empty space where Loki had been standing. He looked down at the little squirrel which he was apparently meant to eat. He stared off into the middle distance for a good stretch of minutes.
Loki was right about one thing, at least. He didn’t know how to hunt. He’d never needed to for food, and it had never appealed to him as a sport. It was just one of those hobbies he’d never been tempted to try.
“J,” he called eventually. “Quick sweep of home base, anything out of place?”
“No, sir,” came the reassuring tone. “Everything is accounted for and where it ought to be. Nothing missing and nothing extra left behind. Other than the squirrel.”
“Right. Okay… All of my appointments tomorrow? Cancel or reschedule them.”
“Sir, you can’t mean to actually– “
“Think of it as a learning experience, J!” He said, not quite believing what was coming out of his own mouth. “And I’m betting I’ll be learning a lot more than just how to take down dinner. Speaking of which, I should probably see about getting some gear…”
“Shall I find an appropriate outlet for hunting rifles, sir?” JARVIS’ tone had taken on the slightly over-enunciated, forced quality it did whenever he was trying to convey just how very patient he was being with his creator. “Or can I assume you will want to design your own?”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually. It shouldn’t be too hard to fabricate something…” Tony trailed off, remembering something Loki had said about children learning to hunt.
“On second thought, scratch that. We’ll go with an outside opinion on this first lesson at least. Find somewhere that specializes in and does fittings for archery gear.”