Chapter Text
Stark Mansion, a building so obnoxious on the coast of California Steve Rogers said it rivaled the Stark Tower in New York City. Regardless, home was home to Tony Stark and he wasn’t about to take advice from a man who ran around in a spangled outfit while fighting bad guys. Ever since the Avengers Initiative had been given the green light – for the most part, although Tony was convinced Fury was still operating on his own agenda because he was the type of guy who didn’t take “no” lightly – the Stark Mansion had been quiet and nearly vacant save for JARVIS, Dum-E, and U. Pepper Potts used it on occasion when she had to take care of business Tony was too busy saving the world to even think about or lazily drinking himself into a stupor at a party he shouldn’t be bothering with. Every so often Tony would fly in after a day of work though, to be by himself and relish in the silence he so very rarely got to enjoy. If Mr. 1940s wasn’t badgering him about his recklessness, Thor was channeling the weather through his emotions; Stark Tower was not the most peaceful place to be sometimes. Besides – he would tell Fury once he figured out he’d gone off the radar – the suit needed a few tune-ups, not to mention his current arc reactor core was in need of a switch off.
There was something about the procedure that he didn’t feel quite right about doing around the Avengers – something besides Thor’s lack of gentleness or Bruce Banner’s controllable anger management. It was a touchy subject to talk about let alone explain when someone walked in to the lab to see Tony’s chest opened up with a softball-sized hole in the middle. Pepper aside, no one else knew much about it and no one asked. Bruce did once, out of sheer curiosity, but immediately faltered into a stuttering apology after Tony seemed to become physically rigid and his jaw clenched. There was much more behind his arc reactor than just his heart, much more than Tony liked to admit.
Iron Man, a shimmer of red and pale gold, zipped through the comfortably warm California air that smelled of salty beaches. A shooting star in the night sky, he corkscrewed towards the mansion and disappeared into the tunnel that led to his garage. He landed gracefully in the wide opening and as soon as his feet touched down, Jarvis was already stripping the metal from his flesh leaving nothing but the billionaire – which really wasn’t nothing. As the last bits from his boots were gently plucked from him, Tony headed straight to the bar as per his usual route; nothing like a drink before self-operating on one’s chest.
“Sir,” the polite sound of Jarvis’s voice filtered through the air. “Director Fury is – ”
“Not here,” Tony cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“He says it is important,” Jarvis pressed.
The brunette rolled his eyes; everything was important with Fury when it came to Tony doing the exact opposite of what he wanted. “Not here.”
“Of course, sir.”
In the back of his mind, he knew he’d only have about ten minutes of peace and quiet before a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, or Nick Fury himself, came knocking at his door. Ordinarily he wouldn’t mind too much if an agent came to pay him a visit, Phil Coulson used to have that fortunate, or unfortunate, job of keeping Stark in check, but after that little episode a year ago… Tony gripped the bottle of scotch with enough force to shatter it if the glass wasn’t half an inch thick. It was easy to pretend it didn’t bother him much around the others, but by himself it was much harder – he liked Coulson, tried his best to keep out of trouble just so he wouldn’t ruin his vacation with the cellist and purposely tried to spice up his job by acting out when he was around. The stone-faced expression wouldn’t let up but he could see the amusement surface in his eyes. Tony poured the scotch with a sour pout on his face.
With the glass cup in hand, Tony made his way out to the balcony to enjoy his drink. As he looked up at the dark sky, pale moon round and glowing eerily down at him, part of him appreciated the serenity and the peaceful sound of waves crashing against the rocks below his mansion, the other part was watching out for the airship circling him from above. He inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes to the world, the scent of seawater thick in the air with an underlying fragrance of ozone. The ice in his drink chinked together lightly as the cup was brought up to his lips for a gentle sip, but as the taste began to intoxicate his taste buds he figured what the hell and cocked his head back to finish it off in one graceful gulp. It stung on the way down but left a tingling, warm sensation afterwards that settled his thoughts of Coulson from earlier. It was surreal that everything happened just about a year ago, it only seemed like yesterday the Chitauri were raining down above Manhattan.
“Sir,” Jarvis’s voice broke through the calm moment the liquor had produced. “There is a – ”
Tony raised his eyebrows questioningly but wasn’t interested enough to open his eyes. He counted to ten instead before visually inquiring why Jarvis had suddenly stopped mid-sentence. Turning towards the house, he found the electricity had faltered out, leaving the mansion in the dark of the night. It was considerably strange considering his mansion was working off the grid and on its own, self-generating power; the source of which was underneath the water, deep enough that it wouldn’t be disturbed by anything but aquatic life. Perturbed, Tony balanced the glass on the railing and took a cautious step closer, lips pursed and brows furrowed. For a moment the air whistled almost comically, the scent of ozone filtering through once more, raising the hairs on the back of the brunette’s neck. The unconscious urge to call out to Jarvis gripped him, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good considering the electricity was down. His phone was in his pocket, but what good would it do to call anyone about his power suspiciously going out? Fury? The bastard probably clipped his power – how incredibly mature of him. With a soft grunt, Tony moved his hand to grab the phone but stopped short as he caught his reflection in the balcony windows. There he was, Black Sabbath T-shirt with the arc reactor glowing furiously behind the thin fabric, the black leggings and flexible rubber boots he wore beneath the suit, and behind him a figure he couldn’t quite make out. Tall, hardly outlined by the moon’s light, with a pair of unreal eyes staring, boring into his soul. Tony flung his upper body around, elbow taut and ready to connect with the mysterious figure, but all it hit was the innocent glass of melting ice. It tilted over and tumbled off the railing, glass and contents hurling towards the rocks below.
His heart was somewhere in his throat, throbbing and erratic with his uneven gasps of breath. What the hell was that? What the literal hell was that? Tired, he was tired, and maybe the scotch hadn’t helped but he could almost feel the cold aura behind him, and those eyes… Tony shook his head. Bed, he’d turn in early and worry about Fury’s wrath in the morning over another glass of scotch and whatever Pepper had managed to keep in his refrigerator. He took a step back, moving on his heel to turn but stopped short as his back became flush with something very solid. A physical shiver worked its way up his spine, took hold and didn’t let go as much as Tony wished it to leave. He opened his mouth to gasp but an icy, lithe hand covered his lips in a painful grasp and he was suddenly knocked off his feet, falling, swirling into nothing and then… sand.
Tropical ocean air filled his senses, the light breeze smelling thickly of ozone, the sea crashing against the shore, the sound of palm tree leaves fluttering – the horizon line of jungle instead of cityscape told him he was not in Malibu anymore. Tony swallowed the knot in his throat and it was hard, but he managed as he turned around in slow steps to try and gather where the hell he was. As his eyes swiveled to the shoreline he saw the dark figure again, no more than a yard away from him, a looming silhouette in the moon’s glow. He could make out the obscene size on the, presumably, male figure – about six foot at least – wearing some sort of a trench coat that fell around his calves; his stance was rigid but dominatingly and threatening. The eyes, without help of reflectivity from the moon behind him, seemed to shine an iridescent green. He couldn’t put a name to the face as it was clouded in shadow, but he felt his skin crawl with a dormant memory of who this could’ve been. They kept daring eye contact until the taller, darker figure pulled his hands behind his back.
“Good evening, Mr. Stark,” the voice was low and smooth, hinted with familiarity.
Tony swallowed again before quirking his lips upward in a nervous smirk. “Didn’t expect to see you, Rock of Ages. Last we heard, daddy dearest sent you hurling into exile.”
Physically, there was no response to his comment, but when Loki spoke again his voice was lit with slight irritation. “That is none of your concern, Stark.” He snarled. A breath of silence between them before he continued, “Exile holds no boundaries for one such as me.”
Tony shrugged, taking half a step back. He felt naked without his technology. “Clearly. So what’s with the romantic getaway? I didn’t peg you for the ‘I like long walks on the beach’ type of guy.”
“Privacy,” Loki replied in a matter-of-fact tone, tilting his head to the right. “You and I have unfinished business.”
“Is that so? Well business hours are nine to five every other – ” The distance between them closed quickly with a long stride towards Tony and a firm hand around his neck. His feet slid away from the sand as Loki pulled him up so they were eye to eye. “Or now, I have time now.”
Nearly two inches apart, the brunette could see Loki’s face a lot clearer now. The skin around his eyes was painfully hallowed and bruised, cheekbones sunken and taut, and his lips that were upturned into a sneer were chapped and scarred, a faint color of red smeared against them. The black hair was flat and shiny against the moon’s light, longer than the last time they had been together. His free hand came up to spread around the glowing light at Tony’s chest, pressing his palm against the arc reactor with sinister interest. Behind the tightly gripped fingers the man swallowed, glancing down with worried eyes before turning them up to meet Loki’s sickly face.
“Still a bit sour I see,” Tony managed to choke out.
“I want to know how this works,” he growled lowly. “You have heart, Mr. Stark, but it is unlike the others. I wish to have it.”
“Buy me dinner first, then maybe we’ll talk,” he grinned half-heartedly and is rewarded with a tightening sensation around his throat. He wanted to remind Loki that killing him will get him no where but he resisted the urge to be snarky to save his breath for better uses – like breathing.
“I am asking with what little patience I have left for you. Tell me,” he breathed the words out like a gaseous poison. “Or I will take it.”
Tony dully noted how the God was losing his usual calm demeanor. Was it desperation he saw in Loki’s eyes, or something deeper – fear? It didn’t faze him either way, but what does elicit an expression was the clenching grip on his arc reactor. He flicked his eyesight downwards, watching the thin fingers claw at the glowing mechanism with impatience.
“Mr. Stark,” he heard his name echo almost softly in his ears. The sudden shift in tones caused him to look back up, and he swore he was looking into the depths of emerald jewels. Tony shivered at the intrusive voice. “Tell me, what exactly does this – ” he paused, tapping gently at the arc reactor. “ – accomplish.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Tony was spilling his story without so much as a stutter. He started at the beginning when his caravan was attacked in the Middle East, how he was attacked by terrorists using his own inventions, the shrapnel lodged in his chest that threatened to kill him every second, and the creation of the arc reactor, its purpose, and how it functioned. With every word that fell from the brunette’s lips without fail, Loki’s tightlipped smile loosened into a malicious grin, eyes widening with mischief, gears working out a scheme. When Tony finished, he felt drained and dazed, like he’d suddenly drunk an entire keg of rum without the nauseating feeling to vomit. He blinked up at Loki; did he just say all of that aloud? But how, and why?
“What a fascinating tale, Mr. Stark,” Loki feigned playfulness as his finger tapped rhythmically on his arc reactor through the T-shirt. His voice was inside of Tony’s head and it was surprisingly pleasant in a terrifying way. It lulled him into a false sense of security he couldn’t fight off and relaxed a bit in the God’s hold. “You have truly enlightened me. You will be sure to keep this meeting to yourself if you wish to continue breathing.”
Daftly, the mortal nodded.
“So obedient,” he chuckled, finally releasing his grasp on the other’s throat but kept the touch on his chest.
The moon was suddenly shining far too bright for Tony’s liking and the sand beneath his feet seemed to disappear. There was a solid piece of something underneath his back and his head was throbbing with an intense pain. Blue skies, the smell of seawater and the sound of waves crashing against rocks, and Jarvis… Jarvis?
“Sir?” he called out for the umpteenth time, but it was the first Tony could hear him.
“What…” Tony groaned and his throat felt dry.
“Should I be worried that you spent the night out on the balcony?”
What? Tony didn’t verbally repeat himself but he screwed up his face, wrinkling his brow and crinkled the bridge of his nose. He didn’t remember falling asleep, let alone lying down on the balcony to do so. Vaguely, he wondered if he drank too much but the undeniable need to vomit wasn’t settling in his stomach. In fact, there wasn’t even a bottle – full or empty – anywhere on the balcony.
“Jarvis,” the brunette squeezed his eyes shut before rolling on his hands and knees to pull himself up. “Do you have a video recording of last night?”
A slight pause. “No. It seems power to the entire mansion was cut at twenty-three hundred hours. Should I call Director Fury?”
Right. He was probably pissed about Tony running off without so much as a goodbye. He rolled his eyes but shook his head. “No, but get a suit ready. I’m going to check out the power line.”