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Like most of the FrostIron incidents (the codename was suggested by a junior SHIELD agent with a penchant for portmanteau names and made permanent by accident, much to Fury’s disgust and the pair’s amusement), it had sounded like a good idea to begin with.
At least, it did to the two involved – to most of their friends and colleagues, it would have sounded somewhere between insanity and disaster.
……………………………..
Steve Rogers had always had very dependable instincts – instincts which were just as much, if not more, responsible than the super soldier serum for ensuring his survival through the centuries. And right now, every instinct was telling him that there was trouble brewing.
On the surface, the Tower Christmas party was going great – every Avenger (including a slightly dazzled Peter Parker) and associates present, up to and including Director Fury himself.
The unfortunate Director had found himself cornered by Aunt May, and was looking around for rescue from the august lady’s barrage of questions regarding everything from Peter’s career prospects to his own fashion choices. Maria Hill, dancing with Natasha, glanced at her boss in amused sympathy, but made no move to help.
Thor’s booming voice could be heard from the other corner of the room, where Clint had gotten him, Jane, Darcy and Peter playing some kind of video game (it sounded like Darcy was trouncing the god of Thunder…again)
Bruce was engaged in what looked like a serious discussion on quantum physics as relating to wormholes with Dr Selvig, both scientists too busy nerd-ing out to pay attention to the party around them.
Okay, everything looks normal, except…
“Anyone saw Tony and Loki?” Coulson asked.
The agent’s thoughts had gone in about the same direction as Steve’s. If there was a party on and either of the mad genius duo was missing, that meant trouble. If both were missing, it meant time to start running.
…………………….
“Yes!”
Tony punched the air as the crystal (finally!) glowed golden green. Loki grinned. JARVIS, in the background, heaved an almost inaudible sigh of relief and allowed the fire suppressant systems to stand down from Red Alert.
“Got it!”
Ever since the whole mad-goddess-of-death-invading-earth crisis which brought them together had been dealt with, Tony and Loki had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into research concerning blending their respective geniuses for extra chaos.
The magi-tech laboratory on the top floor of the Tower bore evidence to their more remarkable attempts – of which this was the most elaborate up to date.
“Okay…” Tony had the perfect kid-on-Christmas-morning look. “This will give me your powers, right?”
“Illusion powers” Loki corrected “And only for twenty four hours”
“Will do to begin with”
The lunatic genius duo, as they had been termed by the exasperated SHIELD agents, had plenty of plans considered when it came to the use of said powers.
No place for mischief like a party – especially a party with the planet’s Men In Black In Chief with his right hand man present. It wasn’t that they didn’t like Fury and Coulson – just that both Men in Black could definitely use some unwinding.
“Ready?”
“You bet!” Tony reached for the crystal.
………………………….
The lights went out.
“Oh come on!” Coulson groaned.
It couldn’t be just a power failure, and not because they were in one of the most technologically advanced buildings on the planet, but because it is never that simple when the Avengers are involved.
“JARVIS!” Natasha called.
“Attempting to restore power” the AI responded.
That was when the explosion came.
Someone – well, several someones – shrieked. Every agent and hero present tensed for battle, every non-hero looked for the nearest emergency exit.
“Aunt May!” Peter called from somewhere.
“Stay put!” the lady called back “Don’t you dare go fight, Pete, let the grown ups handle it!”
“Aunt May!” the teen groaned.
“That was the lab exploding, wasn’t it?” Clint asked quietly.
“Of course it would be” Fury muttered.
………………………..
“Ow” Tony picked himself up off the floor “Rudolph? You okay?”
“Mostly” Loki answered from the other corner of the lab, to where he had been thrown. Green gold light filled the room, showing the trashed lab.
“I…guess it didn’t work?”
The crystal had apparently exploded. Shattered fragments lay around the floor. Tony supposed they were lucky none of it had hit them.
“Probably not” Loki agreed “Must have missed a rune somewhere.”
Tony frowned, glancing at the trickster. Loki was actually admitting he made a mistake? “You sure you’re okay?”
Loki himself looked slightly startled “Uh, yeah. I think.”
Before Tony could consider checking him for concussion, the rest of the team barged in.
Steve glanced at the pair, satisfied himself both were more or less in one piece, and looked round the lab. Probably a good thing that Tony can definitely afford repairs.
“What exactly were you two up to here?” Fury looked more exasperated than outright angry. The team was by now used to such, uh, incidents.
As always before embarking on one of their questionably sane experiments, Tony and Loki had agreed on a perfectly acceptable cover story. Tony opened his mouth to launch into it. What came out was the truth.
…………………………………..
“So.” Fury looked like he was seriously rethinking his idea of recruiting these two to the Earth’s Best Defense team “You were trying to give yourself magic powers?”
“Christmas gift” Loki pointed out “It’s traditional, isn’t it?”
Steve frowned. While the idea of Tony with illusion powers was alarming enough, what was far more alarming was the fact both had freely admitted it. No subterfuge, no tricks. Which could mean either the pair were hurt worse than it looked, or, the truth was even crazier than the given explanation.
Steve was not sure which option was more worrying. Fury was evidently thinking along the same lines.
“Come on” Tony shrugged “It’s no big deal, we’ll have the lab fixed and back to running by tomorrow-“
“That’s exactly what we are worried about” Natasha commented, not unreasonably.
Fury glared at the pair “This is the twenty seventh time the pair of you manage to cook up some disaster or the other in here.”
Loki grinned “Aw, you’re worried about us, Fury?”
“Of course I’m worried!” the Director declared “It’s bad enough sending you lot out to fight actual threats without having to worry about you idiots blowing yourselves up in peacetime!”
The room went silent. Everyone stared. The Director’s expression practically screamed ‘Why the hell did I say that out loud?’
“Okay…” Tony took another, more careful, look at the shattered crystal “Something’s really off here.”
Peter managed to poke his head into the room through the crowd, looking more than a little impressed at the chaos “Wow. Mr. Stark, it didn’t blow up my science project, did it?”
Aunt May was pretty far back in the corridor, but for an old lady, she had exceptionally good hearing
“Peter! Are you bothering Mr. Stark about your school work?” she paused for a moment to consider an even more worrying possibility “Are you using magic?”
“Yes!” Peter replied, and immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, horrified.
“You are using magic?”
“Trying to! It never works! At least, never works the way it’s supposed to” The kid glanced around the room desperately for help, as if he couldn’t figure why his mouth had accelerated so far ahead of his brain.
Loki picked up a piece of the crystal and inspected the rune engraved in it. His eyes widened “Please don’t let this be what I think it is…”
“That really can’t be good” Bruce muttered under his breath.
“And what you think it is…” Steve frowned “What would it be, exactly?”
“Truth spell” Loki sighed.
“Excuse me?” Clint looked more nervous now than when things were blowing up.
“The crystal was sort of, uh, programmed to give Tony illusion powers” the Trickster explained, “Only… I sort of engraved this rune a bit wrong…”
“And?”
“And the spell did the opposite of what it was supposed to. And did it on a grander scale than planned.”
Fury was the first to realize the extent of the mess. “Meaning we…”
“Meaning it took away all powers of illusion” Loki confessed,” And not just magical illusion. Regular ones. Lies.”
“And it worked on all of us?” Natasha looked part curious, part horrified.
Loki nodded nervously “Basically…everyone who were in the Tower when the crystal exploded, would be unable to tell a lie. Any lie.”
“How long?” Fury demanded, rapidly calculating the implications.
Loki paused a moment “Twenty four hours.”
Steve sighed. Okay. Not as bad as it sounded at first. Twenty four hours – they could handle that, surely? Hopefully.
Thor looked more curious than worried “Last time a truth spell was cast on you, it didn’t work so well”
Loki shook his head “Different kind of spell. That one just prevented me from speaking anything that is false.”
“What’s the difference?” Bruce asked.
Natasha rolled her eyes “You really think the god of mischief would have to technically lie to fool anyone?”
“Oh.”
“Can’t do that either” Loki admitted mournfully “Can’t twist words, can’t refuse to answer.”
“Dammit” Fury looked like he was seriously considering shooting someone “I have a meeting scheduled in about twelve hours with the US president! I can’t go to a politician telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!”
“He’ll either die of horror or of laughter” Loki supposed.
“I suppose killing you would cause a diplomatic incident between Midgard and Asgard?” Coulson asked.
“A rather spectacular one” Loki answered “Damn, even rhetorical questions aren’t exempt?”
“Director, do you guys really have aliens in Area 51?” Darcy asked suddenly.
“No, we shifted them after-“
Fury clamped a hand across his own mouth, motioned for Coulson to follow and rushed out of the room with whatever shred of dignity he had managed to maintain.
Steve stepped in, addressing the unfortunate party goers “Ladies and Gentlemen, I think it’s better if we all take a raincheck for this party. It’s just for twenty four hours – everyone go home, isolate yourself and try not to answer anything too awkward.”
“Cap!” someone called from the back of the crowd “D’you really have Stars n’ Stripes tattooed on your-“
The questioner stopped abruptly, as if someone had hand-gagged him.
“I don’t have a tattoo” Steve answered anyway, reddening slightly. He was pretty sure Loki or Tony had been responsible for spreading that particular rumor on the internet “Anywhere. And refrain from asking awkward questions, okay?”
“No!” Darcy answered “Oops, sorry! But it’s so much fun to-“
“Everyone please exit the Tower in an unhurried manner” JARVIS announced. It looked like even the AI had had enough of the mess.
The place emptied faster than expected. No one was particularly eager to remain in public with their verbal filters removed.
“Um, where did Peter go?” Aunt May asked, looking around.
“Out the window” Tony answered promptly.
“Why didn’t you tell me-“
Steve interrupted the question before Tony would be forced to give an honest answer “Well, he’s a teenager, ma’am. Teenager, parental figure, truth spell. You can understand why he’d prefer to be, um, out of range.”
Aunt May chuckled “I wasn’t actually going to ask him anything. Not this way. Tell him that if he comes back.”
“I will.”
He was reasonably sure Peter would be spending most of the next twenty four hours on skyscrapers, in hearing range of nothing but pigeons.
………………………………
The Avengers, finally left alone in the Tower, looked at each other.
“Um, better go to our rooms” Steve suggested.
Unfortunately, not all of the team was quite that concerned for the privacy of their colleagues.
“Hey, Loki,” Clint started with a grin “Are any of those stories true? Norse myths, I mean?”
“Some” Loki glared at the human.
Clint was certainly not deterred “The one with the, uh, your thing with the horse? Did that happen?”
“No!”
“And the one with the goat?”
“No” Loki grinned, clearly not minding this question “ That wasn’t me, it was-“
Thor grabbed him, clamping a hand over his mouth “You already answered the question.”
Clint started to say something, but the way the god of Thunder was glaring at him convinced even Hawkeye to back off. “Okay, okay. Let’s not have any localized thunderstorms right now…”
“Besides” Loki wriggled out of Thor’s grip “I think you sort of answered the question for them, brother mine.”
JARVIS interrupted whatever response Thor meant to give “Dr Strange has arrived at the Tower.”
Loki’s laughter stopped instantly. “Damn.”
“Um, you think he found out-“ Tony began, but Loki was already calling up a portal. “Hey, where are you going?”
“To Antarctica!” the trickster answered “No way I’m gonna be anywhere near him in this condition!”
Steve moved to the intercom just as Loki dived into the portal and pulled it closed behind him, leaving a flurry of snowflakes. “Um, Stephen? I think we could use some help here…”
“Maybe he can lift the spell-“ Bruce began, but Tony cut him off, gesturing frantically to Steve
“Not worth the risk!”
“Is it an emergency?” Stephen Strange enquired, sounding seriously pissed off.
Steve hesitated a moment, glanced at Tony and the others, then finally admitted “Well, not really.”
“Is Loki there?”
“No. Went out a portal- Damn.”
“To where?”
“Antarctica”
“Okay.” Strange cut the call immediately.
Glancing outside, Clint could see the flash of light as another portal opened and closed. “What did you guys do?”
Tony shrugged “Some of the stuff for this spell, well, we sort of borrowed some of it.”
Natasha rolled her eyes “You two are soo dead.”
“Only if Mandrake down there catches Loki before the spell wears off” Tony suggested hopefully.
Natasha and Clint exchanged expressive glances, shrugged, and went out of the room. They would probably be the only pair in the Tower who would be okay with being in each other’s company while under a Truth Spell, Steve supposed somewhat gloomily. Bruce followed, keeping a careful distance.
Thor looked uncertain “Maybe I should go after-“
“You’ll get turned into a frog” Tony commented “Again.”
Steve shook his head in exasperation “You guys nicked stuff from the Sorcerer Supreme.”
“Borrowed. And it was mostly Loki.”
“His Christmas present to you, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Magic powers.”
“Illusion powers.”
“Whatever”
Tony noticed Steve’s expression and frowned “Hey, Cap? Why the long face? It’s hardly the first time we messed with magic.”
Steve almost clapped his hand over his mouth, but already the words were tumbling out “Because it makes my present look lame!”
Tony’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline “Um… Cap, you sound a bit jealous… ”
Steve glared at him. But the Truth spell apparently considered that pause at Tony’s end a question, because words spilled out again “I am jealous! I’ve got no chance with you with him here!”
Thor stared from Steve to Tony and back again, then tactfully backed out of the room. Neither of the pair noticed. Steve found himself blushing furiously and lowered his eyes
“Sorry” he ground out through gritted teeth “I think I’d better stay out of the way till this damn thing wears off.”
Tony blinked a couple of times, just beginning to recover “Cap- I mean, Steve…”
“I’m sorry” Steve muttered again “Look, just let’s leave this, okay? I know you guys are… I mean, you do make a cute couple…”
He glanced at the door as if seriously considering just bolting for it.
“We aren’t a couple!” Tony yelled before Steve could escape.
That made Steve pause, at least for a moment “You guys…aren’t? I thought you were dating…”
Tony shook his head so rapidly that his hair seemed in danger of flying off “No! I mean, we did go on a date or two, he’s hot, I’m hot, we love making people stare… But nah, not a couple. Nowhere close.”
Steve frowned “But you two are…”
“Friends” Tony’s expression was one of amused exasperation – with another, stranger, emotion mixed in. “Neither of us want to go any farther – not with each other, anyway.”
Steve had told himself he would never ask a question to another while this spell was on, but at this he couldn’t stop himself “Why…”
Tony shrugged, then glanced around to see whether Thor was gone from the room even as he spoke “First - the same reason Jane’s going to break up with Pointbreak.” Steve frowned ”Jane is going to…”
Tony nodded “You did notice she was the first one out the Tower, didn’t you?”
Automatically Steve nodded too “Yeah, but that could be just.. Besides, what reason? They are so…”
“Cute together?”
“Yeah!”
“For now.”
Steve’s frown deepened for a moment, then he nodded as if he got it ”Yeah, Jane…She will age, but I don’t think Thor is the type to lose interest just because-“
“Thor isn’t the one who’s losing interest” Tony interrupted “Jane is.”
“Huh?”
Whether or not that was a question, Tony took it as one. Or maybe just wanted an excuse to ramble
“The Asgardians age super slow, Cap. Thor and Loki, they’re in early twenties – physically, yeah, but mentally too. And emotionally. I think Loki’s late teens actually. Early twenties and Mid Twenties, yeah, that can work out, but humans age way too fast. It’ll probably take a while before Jane ages enough to be thought mismatched with Thor in looks, but she’s already aged enough that she is mismatched on a maturity level. She’s an adult. He is – and will be for a century at least – an adolescent, or only just past it. Okay in a friend, in a teammate. A partner, nah. Not for Jane. And not for me.”
Steve considered that for a long moment, then nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense… That’s your reason?”
“The first one.”
“And the second…”
Tony took a deep breath and glared at his teammate “The second reason is that I wanted to be with someone else.”
“Oh. Okay…” Steve turned to leave, but Tony got in the way
“Someone from the twentieth century. You know, typical boy scout guy, whom I was convinced was straight! “
Steve froze, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times. Finally he managed to remember how to form words “You mean… You really mean it?”
Tony rolled his eyes “Of course I really mean it! There’s a Truth Spell on, in case you haven’t noticed!”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh, alright!” Tony looked like he was about to bang his head on the walls out of sheer exasperation “All the time I tried setting you up for dates - and you never mentioned you were okay with guys too?”
“No.”
“Rhetorical question!”
Steve was still trying to process the idea that Tony was actually interested. Yeah, come to think of it, he had never actually told anyone… Residue of twentieth century. You didn’t talk about that type of thing. Everyone knew some were like that, but you didn’t mention it in company.
Steve was no prude, no matter what his teammates may sometimes think, but it still took considerable effort to overcome social programming. And besides, he most certainly hadn’t wanted to risk Tony suspecting anything. Not when he thought he was with Loki…
“So…you like me? Like that?”
“YES!” Tony looked like he wasn’t sure whether to kiss Steve or throw the nearest handy object at him. “There’s a god-of-magic level Truth Spell on, I’m telling you outright I’ve had a crush on you since the whole goddess-of-death invading earth mess, and you still don’t get it?”
“I…get it” Steve admitted, then stepped forward and pulled Tony into his arms.
Tony responded by leaning in for a kiss – only to be interrupted by clapping. The pair sprang apart to see Clint, Natasha and Loki watching with Cheshire-Cat grins.
“About freaking time” Loki commented.
“Didn’t you go to Antarctica?” Steve glared.
“Went” the Trickster shrugged “Then Steph turned up… Hopefully he’s still chasing penguins back there.”
“Not exactly” Strange’s voice came from the intercom.
Loki facepalmed. “I’ll give the stuff back!”
“We’ll see” the sorcerer said, then in a different tone “And congrats, you two – about freaking time!”