Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I especially and first foremost need to thank my beta reader "Taki-Flower" (on tumblr) for always having a critical eye on my writing. She finds my logic errors, my grammar flaws, she sometimes finds sentences that express what I wanted but could'nt. And she motivates me. Taki-Flower, you are pretty awesome. Thank you!

The story starts in Tony's tower during the battle of New York and I admit, needs a little inrun, but we will get there! 

Criticism is welcome here! Logical error spotters are welcome! Grammar Nazis are welcome! Normal Nazis are not at all welcome! Compliments are very welcome! And the most welcome thing here are of course you guys! 

 Trailer Thingy

REVENGE IS A CONFESSION OF PAIN

-latin proverb

"That was the plan."

And Thor had told them, his brother was cunning. This had to be a joke. Tony placed the glass on the counter. “Not a great plan.” From underneath the bar table, Tony pulled out the colantotte bracelet and slid it around his wrist.

“I have an army,” Loki stated.

“We have a HULK,” Tony said and picked his glass up.

“I thought the beast had wandered off.”

“You’re missing the point.” With a glass of his most expensive scotch in his hands -might as well, because he might die anyway- Tony approached Loki. His heart hammered in his chest, but he was Tony Stark. He didn't back off..

“There’s no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Your plan’s going to fail big time, buddy.” Loki’s closed in on Tony, looking sinister.

Tony’s hand shot towards his bracelet. He had told JARVIS to run the software for the bracelet before Loki let himself into the penthouse, so the setup process should be done by now. He pressed the little screen and it lit up with blue light confirming that Tony’s request had been accepted.

“Loosen up.” Loki said, closing in on him. "I won’t kill you. I merely seek to distract your friends."

“I’ll tell you what. Transforming into a unicorn will do.” Tony said, stalling for time since his suit had to come all the way up from his workshop.

“What I thought of,” Loki drawled, “was something more potent.”

Tony felt his heart’s speed rise dangerously and tensed. There was never anything good about a super powered guy with an edged spear threatening you. However, he stayed in place, withstood the god's glare and raised his chin. His suit should show up any moment now. Loki couldn't see the cold sweat was forming on his back, neither did he know how dry Tony's mouth was by this point.

"Because how will they have time for me," Loki said, raising the scepter, "when they are so busy fighting you?"

Hell, where was the damn thing?!

A metallic clank resounded as Loki placed the sceptre upon his arc reactor.

Nothing happened.

Loki blinked in surprise. "This usually works.”

“Oh, you know," Tony said, swallowing. "Performance issues...one out of five has."

He was disrupted by Loki grabbing his throat. He squeezed until Tony started gasping for breath, the lack of air made his head spin and panic fill his lungs. His head felt like it was going to explode and he struggled to fight free, but Loki’s grip was ironclad.

“Two things are endless,” Loki whispered, his voice scornful. “The universe and human stupidity.” The words barely got through to Tony, who kicked against Loki's legs, against every part of his body in reach, but the god didn't even seem to notice.

Soon Tony´s body grew limp, a feeling of dizziness filling up his head. ”Even you, who claims to be a genius among yours truly, are so frail,” Loki spoke, then opened his hand and let Tony drop to the floor. He barely managed catching himself with his hands before coughing violently. His throat felt sore.

“You're lucky that mechanic heart is protecting your fragile body.”

Tony’d rather have had his armour. He pressed his finger to the screen again and managed to stand up, even if he remained shaky. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “It's not exactly a heart. Let´s keep to the facts.”

Loki smirked. “That only means that somewhere underneath this piece of scrap metal, there lies” - and he touched the scepter to Tony's chest again, only this time slightly next to the arc reactor - “a real heart.”

Tony hadn't imagined before, what mind-control would feel like. Because, quite frankly, it didn't matter and now that he had gotten himself into the situation where it did, he couldn't do anything. He could feel the sharp blade of the scepter through his shirt, and then energy bolted through him as if he was touching an overpowered electric fence. Feelings and memories that couldn't be his own flooded his mind.

They couldn't be his own emotions, for he wasn't that bitter inside. They couldn't be his memories, because they felt distant like a dream you once had. He saw big golden halls with high columns and big gardens, saw people dressed like warriors and fantastic landscapes. He saw Thor walking through a crowd.

As the people cheered him on and called his name, all Tony felt disdain. He saw a blonde woman sitting opposite him. The surrounding room was blurred like an impressionistic painting, but she was clearly visible. He felt lost and sad, there was an emptiness in his chest where trust and safety once had been, but when he laid his eyes upon her, warmth filled his chest.

“You should never feel different,” she said, and as she did, her voice grew distant. The ground opened up and he fell. Stars, planets and galaxies rushed by. He experienced the dreamy sensation of endless falling and from somewhere in the wide space around him a eerie voice resounded. It came from everywhere and then again it felt like it merely resounded from within his heart.

“I know who you are.”

His gut clenched. Tony knew the sensation from riding roller coasters, but he wasn't afraid. He felt numb.

“I know your deepest longing, Asgardian, and I can take you there.”

Tony hit the ground. Light flooded his vision and when he pushed himself up, he felt dirt, stones and grass underneath his fingertips. Pain shot through his body and it made him grow so desperate, he started to cry.

Someone hit the ground with a thump, neatly landing on his feet. “Loki! Don't cry, come on...really, I didn't mean to..”

Through the curtain tears that blinded him, he saw a young blond boy. Thor, he thought. He looked crestfallen.

He started to cry once more, wailing, until a big firm hand caressed his cheeks and a voice filled with compassion spoke to him. “Now, now, why are you crying? What happened?”

Rage welled up inside him. “Thor! He pushed me off the tree! He pushed me!”

“We were playing!” Thor exclaimed. His mother shot him a harsh glare and he cast his eyes down, staring at the grass. “Loki asked me to play. He said, ‘What would you do if I were a frost giant. You can't fight a frost-giant.’ I wanted to prove him wrong.”

An expression of shock crossed the blonde woman's face for a split second, then she smiled again. She said something, surely trying to settle the fight between the two brothers, but Tony didn't hear her anymore. His head resounded with angry words, fueled by desperate feelings.

“The frost-giants are monsters.”

“Do they still live?“

“They do.”

Mothers tell their children stories about frost-giants to scare them. They are monsters. Monsters deserve to get pushed down a tree. They deserve to die.

If all they deserve is fall, then I might as well let go.

Thinking this, Tony opened his eyes, staring right into Thor’s. His hand was clutched around a spear and he was hanging in mid-air. Where he expected, feeling panic and fear, at the risk of falling, he felt nothing. He was numb. And nothing made sense anymore.

And then, all of a sudden, it ended. All he saw now were the marble tiles of his apartment. It took him a moment to raise his gaze. His head was still feeling dizzy after the strange electrical sensation. When Tony realized where he was, everything came to him again - New York, Loki in his apartment pointing the scepter at him, the images and memories that followed.

Tony shook off his residue confusion and looked up, seeing Loki staring at him.  His breathing was so heavy, Tony could clearly see his lower teeth row.

"Wow, is that USB 9.0? You are advanced," Tony said. "Hey, what was on the Tony Stark show? Or does this only work in one direction? Would be a pity, I have been pretty entertaining - "

Loki grabbed him by the throat again -Tony thought, it was really becoming old.. "I've had enough of you. Pity for your pretty woman, but you will die. At least you won't ever have to feel guilty about caring more for your superhero identity than her."

"You didn't see us having sex, did you? That would be unfair, i just saw lots of daddy complex.”

Loki slammed him against the wall. Tony’s back ached at the impact, but he bit his teeth together, preventing himself from screaming. Loki dragged him around like a doll and by this point, every fiber of Tony´s body resonated with pain.

He should probably refrain from the inappropriate comments, but if he was going to die, it was with a comment about a god´s erectile dysfunction on his lips.

Loki let go of his throat and grabbed his shoulder instead, which wasn't better. Tony was sure, the only thing missing was the sound of his bones cracking. He internally cursed. Apparently waiting for his suit to show up was hopeless.

"Alright, alright! Just wanted to make sure, ‘cause that would be awkward, with that first person view. I wonder if i would’ve ..."

Tony’s breath hitched as he was interrupted by the sensation of cold steel against his flesh.

"Enough with the blathering," Loki said.

“Come on.” Tony swallowed. “We both know that’s an empty threat right? We do, ‘cause you told me you wouldn’t kill me. Remember?”

Loki held a little sharp dagger against his throat.

“I might now,” he deadpanned. “Just to stop this chatter of yours.”

“You’re insulting me! People actually pay to hear me speak, you know.”

“I still do not hear you shutting up.”

“You’re getting profane, mighty god.” Tony couldn’t help it. He was uncomfortable with Loki being close to him. So close that he could probably hear Tony’s flat breathing, smell his cold sweat and feel his rapidly beating pulse.

Loki gritted his teeth. “You believe I find this amusing, even entertaining, this banter. You will see just how right you are with that.”

He grabbed Tony’s shoulder even harder and brought them closer together. Tony drew a rapid breath, never taking his eyes off of Loki, who now bent forward until his lips were close to Tony’s ear.

“I will find it just entertaining enough, to taint the floor with your blood,” Loki hissed.

A feeling of horror struck him, as he actually felt the blade ease into his skin.  

Chapter Text

By that point, Tony had forgotten all about having called his suit.

Neither Tony nor Loki saw it coming, when the suit rushed out of the lift and crushed right into Loki’s side. He was slammed against Tony’s waterfall wall on the other side of the room. Tony took the chance to hold out his arms for the armour to attach itself onto him and immediately addressed Jarvis when his faceplate locked with his helmet. “Hell, what took you so long?”

“I am very sorry, Sir,” Jarvis said. “There have been complications with the setup process.”

“Guess that needs to be refined.”

Tony knew he was still in no position to fight Loki off, but at least he couldn’t try to slit his throat any more. He felt a thin trail of blood trickle down his chin, where Loki’s dagger had cut into his skin.

“Sir. The cut at your throat should be treated to avoid infection,”Jarvis advised.

“Yeah, little time for that now.”

Tony watched Loki pick himself up from the floor. He looked royally pissed, like a cat thrown into the bathtub, dripping wet with his hair sticking to his head. Just when he had managed to straighten himself up, the window behind him burst. Tony blinked and then Thor was pinning Loki to the wall by the throat.

“Hey, hands off, he’s mine!” Tony called, despite being glad that Thor had shown up. He hadn’t been sure how to go on from this point. Escaping would likely have been the only option. And so not like Tony.

“What do you think you’re doing, Loki?” Thor growled and loosened his grip from Loki’s throat to let him speak.

“Can’t you see?” Loki mocked, huffing out a short laugh. “I am freeing mankind from the shackles freedom puts them in.”

“This is deranged! Do you not see this? It can’t escape you that your goals are hollow.”

“Are they now?” Loki laughed again. “I haven't been asking you.”

“You should’ve,” Tony chimed in, “instead of trusting some guy in space who promises you the world.”

Thor kept his grip firm around Loki’s neck, but turned to face Tony. “What are you talking about, Stark?”

“Well, while you were flying around with your magic hammer, I had a look into your brother’s neat mind. Not that he digged it,” Tony said, as Loki gritted his teeth.

“But the point is, I think Mr. Almighty here has fallen victim to some miscounselling.The guy he has turned to makes my skin crawl.” Tony wasn’t exaggerating either. The thought of the memory made the hair on his skin turn upright.

Thor turned to Loki again. “Who are you working with, brother? Who is constraining you?”

Thor loosened his grip, so Loki could speak. “No one! Why would I let anyone force my hand after all these years of suppression you made me undergo?”

“Did you look yourself in the eye? You have succumbed to madness, brother. You do not see what you are getting yourself into…,”

Tony didn’t know what to do. He felt vain just being spectator to the scene that unfolded, but this was a moment only between Thor and Loki, nothing for him to meddle with. Yet he couldn’t help but recall Loki’s memory of how Thor pushing Loki off that tree. He didn’t know anything about these guys’ backstory, but what he had seen in Loki’s head made him wonder.

“... I beg you,” Thor whispered. “Come back home with me.”

“Why? So you and Odin can leave me to rot in chains?”

“No.” Thor shook his head. “It’´s not too late to turn back now. But it will soon be. If you do not stop now, you won’t be permitted to make amends anymore.”

At that, Loki shoved his hand against Thor’s chest and sent him flying backwards with a burst of magic. “I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE AMENDS!”  

Tony tried to shoot him with his repulsor, but Loki saw it coming and sidestepped it.  “Why, to return to that sorry state of being overshadowed ?! How would you understand, ‘Brother?’”

Thor managed to land on his feet. Tony could see the gears in his head turning, trying to come up with the right thing to say. Finally, he drew a deep breath and spoke.

“We are family.”

“No,” Loki hissed. “ We are not. We never were.”

“Sorry to interrupt Family Matters,” Tony said, addressing Thor. “But I think Loki is just stalling for time until the portal opens.”

“Precisely,” Loki said, raising his gaze. “But there is nothing you can do to stop it either way.”

Thor bit his lip, then took a few huge steps towards Loki, who stiffened but didn’t move. “We can't!” he said. “No, you are right, we can not thwart your plans. But you can! Loki, you are not thinking clearly.You are hurt, I can see that, but I also know my brother! He would have never come up with something so imprudent!”

Loki swallowed and blinked rapidly. Like someone who wanted to keep his eyes from watering up. “The person you speak of no longer exists. Since that day in Jotunheim he is gone. He will never come back.”

“Loki…” Thor's voice broke off and Tony found there was something heartbreaking about seeing a massive guy like him on the verge of tears.

“... Loki,” he repeated. He reached for Loki's shoulder, maybe hoping to get to him through touch. But then, Loki vanished in a flash of green light, leaving Thor standing in Tony’s living room. His hand still hung mid-air, lost.

Tony let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. “You alright?”  

Thor shook his head. “Why won’t he give in?” He raised his gaze to meet Tony’s. “He is going to ruin everything, for everyone and himself, just because he is too thick-headed.”

Tony shrugged.“Yeah, but you reap what you sow.”

“I was once like this as well. I cannot let my brother walk that path.”

Tony wasn’t convinced that Loki had a good core, after he had tried to slit his throat a few minutes before. But if Thor was right, it was only in their best interest if the guy came back to his senses and dropped his schemes. “There is one more thing you haven’t tried,”

Thor looked at him and waited.

“You know, we had that weird connection, never mind now. But he does appear pretty attached to your mother,” Tony said, walking over to his bar.

“He is.” Thor nodded. “But father didn’t find it appropriate to send the queen away from Asgard.”

“Well, do you think she could persuade him?” Tony asked, while picking up a new glass of scotch. The old one had shattered on the floor and its content was spilled all over the floor.

Thor nodded. “Yes, if someone is capable of getting to him now, it can only be Mother.”

“Easy thing to do then.” Tony sipped his drink. “Get her down here.”

It hadn’t been as easy as it sounded, when Tony suggested it. Odin wasn’t jubilant about the  idea but he couldn’t withstand his wife's persistence in the matter. Until the last second Frigga had hoped Thor alone would be persuasive enough, but as soon as she heard she was now the only hope left for her son’s fate, there was no holding her back.

And that was how she came to appear in Tony’s tower. Compared to Loki’s memory, she was even more beautiful in person. Tony just hoped that Pepper wouldn’t show up now, because every woman in the world would grow jealous of such beauty.

They didn’t waste time with introductions.

Frigga asked right away, “Where is he?”

“We do not know,” Thor admitted. “When we tried to get to him before, he vanished.”

“I always hoped it wouldn't end anywhere near this,” Frigga said, addressing Thor. “I hoped he would be a light to shine on his own.”

“He mentioned that,” Thor said. His ever so proud and upright posture sunk down. “Being overshadowed.”

“Your father and you cast large shadows. But you mustn’t blame yourself for that, my son. It is me and your father who should have conducted differently.”

Tony coughed. Discussing those matters was without doubt pivotal, but this was not the time for it. Maybe they didn’t feel the weight of the threat hanging over his home-planet, but he did. They had tried to shut down the portal by themselves but apparently they needed Loki’s sceptre for that.

Frigga noticed. “I apologize,” she said. “I am locating Loki all at once.”

She closed her eyes and her lips moved, as if she was mumbling something. So, magicians needed incantations after all. Tony had wondered about that.

“I know where he is.” Frigga opened her eyes again. “Let us hope for the best,” she told Thor, then dissolved in an all too similar fashion to Loki’s.

Hope was a neat thing, but Loki lately had taken a liking to destroy neat things. So as Frigga returned, her shoulders were hunched forward and the white of her eyes had a tint of red in them. She just shook her head and no one dared to ask how it had gone. Tony handed her a glass of water and she took it, nodding in gratitude.

“Guess we’ll have to kick his butt.” Tony said.

Once more, Frigga shook her head. “He hasn’t made up his mind yet.”

“Then why do you look so downcast mother?” Thor asked.

Frigga pressed her lips together, then took a step forward and locked her hands with Thor’s. She took a deep shaky breath. “The queen of Asgard should be wise, and yet it has taken me until now to realize that Loki is never going to be the same he was.”

A sob escaped her lips. “He is broken, I have lost him.”

She leaned her face into Thor's chest and cried. Thor wrapped his arms around her. “He is not lost,” he assured. “I know it.”

Tony was more on Frigga's side in that, but he wouldn’t say anything. If it had been hard to watch Thor bite back his tears before, it was horrible to watch a mother’s pain at the loss of a son. Even if he was -as Tony had heard Thor say- not her own flesh and blood.

Loki and Selvig were gone. As was the portal. Loki probably found it too dicey leaving it so close too Tony,him being a genius and all that. And as nothing else was happening either at the moment, Tony offered Thor and his mother a place for staying the night. She thanked him with a little bow and they retired for the night.

As Tony stood in the lift riding back up to his living room, he shot Pepper a text.

Tony-08:23 PM-

Sorry, you can’t come back yet. It’s not safe. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Love you <3

Pepper responded right away and Tony figured she had her phone with her.

-Pep-08:23 PM-

I’m worried, Tony. Promise me that you will watch out for yourself.

Tony-08:24 PM-

Promise.

Tony couldn't help but wonder. His father had cast a large shadow too, but Tony had never felt compelled to react to that with villainous actions. Then again, he had been a bit of an asshole before the incident in Afghanistan. Egoistic-if he wasn’t still-, irresponsible, reckless, inconsiderate, yes all that, but never that messed up.

“Sir, you have a intruder.” Jarvis said.

“What? Where?”

“It appears he is in your living room at the moment. I am sorry, the sensors in the area were damaged by Thor earlier today.”

The doors of the lift slid open and Tony stepped outside. He could tell something was askew, even if it was all silent in the room. There was this sensation again that made the hairs on his neck stand up.

“Some light, Jarvis.”

The contrast of white marble tiles against the deep red of blood was mesmerizing. A trail of blood led around the corner towards his bar. Tony swallowed. The sight screamed cold blooded murder, as seen in TV-crime scenes. He rounded the corner and froze at the sight.

Loki stood in front of his bar, downing one of Tony’s most delicate bottles of Whisky like it was  ice tea. At his approach, Loki glanced at him out of the corner of his eye before he went on drinking.

The bobbing of his Adam’s Apple distracted Tony for moment from what a bloody mess the guy was. His clothing was torn and his breastplate had been pierced.

“Sure, make yourself comfy,” Tony said, after he had overcome a moment of surprise. “Oh, the blood? Don't worry, Dumm-E can clean it up later.”

Loki just snorted and that didn’t clear up for Tony whether he was merely in too bad of a shape to laugh or if he still tried to sell to Tony that he found his jokes irritating rather than funny. Which was a ludicrous thing. Tony was freaking hilarious.

Upon a closer inspection, Tony noticed the glowing cube that Loki had clutched in his left hand. “Is that the Tesseract? Why, I'm flattered you’re trying to lure me in with presents, but I'll have to decline. I am not too much into the sadistic stuff.”

“You mustn't touch it,” Loki said. “Your skin wouldn't react well to that.”

“Yeah, thank you for not making me burn until my skin peels off.”

“Pleasure,” Loki croaked. He placed the bottle of whisky on the counter to grab hold of the tables edge with his free hand and doubled over until his face was no longer visible to Tony. He coughed and made a sickening sound that reminded Tony of many hangover nights he had spent bent over a toilet bowl.

However, it was no bile that trickled down Loki's chin down to the floor. It was thick and deep red blood. Even standing that far away, Tony could hear his strained breathing. It occurred to him that this was the perfect moment to call SHIELD to take him prisoner again, or to take revenge on him for the murder attempt earlier. It was a great opportunity to humiliate him.

He found himself intrigued by the idea, but also by the fact that the one who Loki sought out when he was throwing up blood, was him.

And he had yet to find out who could beat Loki up like this.

“So, you needed a drink, big fella?”

“Just a little something against the pain.”

“Yeah, I wonder about that. Who managed to work you up like that? Cause I´m considering recruiting him for the team.”

Loki snorted. “The Chitauri weren’t overly fond of my decision.”

Tony raised his eyebrow in suspicion and took a few steps towards the god. “You’re telling me you gave up, is that it? Mommy sweet talked you into submission. And you’re here. My place. Not seeking out Thor or SHIELD.”

Once more, Loki coughed and Tony caught himself staring at his thin lips as he wiped away the trail of blood that ran out of them in a swift uncaring motion. “Impressive deduction, so what?”

“So, I guess you’re here because I owed you a drink. “

Loki smirked. “What other reason would there be?”

“Honestly though. An 80 year old Bartonshire Irish Whisky, and you down it just like that? You got nerves.”

“I’ve had worse,” said Loki. He could still stand without staggering, which was noteworthy considering that the bottle standing in front of him was empty and Loki had finished it in less than two minutes. With Loki’s high tolerance, buying Loki drinks for one evening would be tough, even with Tony’s wealth.

Tony’’d end up rolling around on the floor, before you could even accuse Loki of being tipsy.

His phone buzzed. He was about to glance at the screen when Jarvis diverted his attention. “Sir, we have a situation outside.”

He had to reprogram Jarvis to get straight to the point. Tony placed the phone on the counter and shared a short look with Loki. His expression was arcane. “Fill me in,” Tony said.

“Unspecified life forms are currently attacking the city, Sir.”

Loki coughed again, and droplets of blood covered the counter.“Ah, yes, something you ought to know.”

Chapter Text

Thanks again to beyondmyreach, for being the most diligent beta-reader in the history of beta-readers!

“You led the army here?!”

“I didn’t lead them. They were hounding me.”

Tony rubbed his eyebrow with his palm and groaned. “How about next time, you tell me that first? That there is a bloody army of aliens in the city.”

“They are few,” Loki said. “And the portal is now shut off.”

“Yeah, but they roughed you up.”

“No, not them.”

“Lemme guess, the guy with the eerie voice.”

“I do not know who you are referring to,” Loki said, leaning on the counter. Despite his attempt for causality, clearly his wounds were causing him great pain, but Tony decided he didn’t care.

“Your prince charming, you know,” Tony said, imitating a deep voice. “Fulfilling your deepest longings.”

Loki dropped his gaze, looking sombre. Then, he laughed. “Oh yes, well he couldn’t dream of it.”

Even though Tony was still uneasy about the god lurking around in his living room, he needed to see what was going on outside, so he turned to walk away.

Loki appeared miserable and not at all tempted to draw out his dagger again. That was none of Tony’s business, not to mention  he had time on his hands, but if he did, he would’ve loved inquiring on the topic just to humiliate Loki.

Turning towards the lift, he said, “Jarvis, wake up Thor and Frigga. Also, keep an eye on Loki.”

The lift’s doors closed behind him. At that moment, Tony’s phone, which laid forgotten on the counter, lit with two consecutive messages.

-Pep-20:41-

Tony, the city is under attack. I’m worried. Are you alright?

-Pep-20:44-

Okay, I’m coming over.

Everyone filed out onto Tony’s roof observing the situation. Natasha, Clint and Steve had arrived in a Helicarrier after Tony met up with Thor and his mother, both of whom were already awake by the time Jarvis attempted to stir them up. Loki had dragged himself outside as well.

“What is he doing here?!” Clint clenched his teeth together, his hand ready to grab at his weapon, but then, Frigga stepped forward and stood between her son and the other Avengers. “Listen, I know  my son has caused you great distress and I would like to apologize for that. But he has agreed to give up on his plans and returning home with Thor and me. I am sure we can find a way to let the matter rest.”

“Yeah, sure. And therefore an alien army is in the city,” Clint said. “I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t look like surrender to me.”

“I hate to destroy the diplomacy,” Bruce said, “but I agree with Clint on this point.”

“Surely Loki can explain,” Thor said.

Loki scoffed. “This is hardly the whole army. It’s only a derisory fraction. I shut down the portal almost immediately after it opened.”

“Yeah,” Clint breathed deeply, controlling his temper. “I don’t believe you.”

“I do not see the whole army attacking your city,” Loki said.

“Where is your sceptre?” Bruce asked. “You should hand it over.”

Loki’s jaw twitched and he glanced away, clearly unnerved. “I don’t have it. Thanos took it back.”

“See.” Clint said, self satisfied. “Doesn’t look too good for you.”

“Listen,” Loki hissed. “I can’t change what happened..”

“Yeah,” Bruce interfered. “But maybe you’re lying to us.”

Natasha studied Loki quietly. She had been trained seeing signs for someone's trustability. “I can’t be sure with him.” she finally said.  

“Guys,” Tony started. “I know there is some back story with Loki. But let’s put those aliens ahead of that issue.”

“Ridiculous,” Loki commented and pulled his dagger out. “You will need my assistance.”

“No,” Tony addressed Loki. “You’ll stay here. I want you monitored.”

“Mr. Stark is right,” Frigga intervened. “You musn’t involve yourself in battle. The injuries you carry look alarming.” She cast a worried look over Loki’s body.

Loki gritted his teeth in frustration, but eventually slid his weapon back into his clothing.

They watched the strange alienate creatures on flying scooters rush through the city, firing at cars, people and buildings without a distinct objective.

“They aren’t many,” Natasha pointed out. “If we split up, they won’t be any trouble.”

“Well, you heard her,” Steve said. Clint hesitated for a moment, before finally sighing. “Fine, let’s kick some ass first.”He glared at Loki. “And we are not done yet.”

“Okay,” Steve announced. “I will go east, Tony can go to the north of the city, Natasha and Bruce can go west and Clint, you’ll check the south.”

Tony’s faceplate snapped shut and he took after a group of three Chitauri sighted near a big bank building. Hovering in the air, he hit one of them with a blast from his repulsors; it wiggled for a moment and then fell down into a tree’s crown. The other two bailed and disappeared behind a skyscraper.

Speeding up his suit, he followed the couple left around the building, dodged two blasts aimed for him and pursued them through Central Park.

“Fast, ugly fuckers,” he mumbled, trying to hit them with another blast. It caught one of the Chitauri and sent it crashing right into an imposing birch tree. Before he could celebrate, Tony was sent flying backwards by a massive blast, the remaining Chitauri had fired at him. He only barely managed catching himself before dropping into a duck pond.

“No, no, no, no, you don't.” He gritted his teeth, then blasted away from the pond’s surface,  slamming right into the alien and knocking it off its scooter. Without the vehicle, it was easy dealing with it. Tony sidestepped three shots from the falling alien, then  shot it square in the head with a repulsor blast, sending bits of  aliens brain flying all over the place. Slushy purple liquid rained down onto the side walk and Tony dreaded, his armour had might also have gotten a metro sexual new paint-job.

“Guys, I could use a hand here,” he heard Steve say over the intercom. He was battling a group of four in a street containing a few cinemas and restaurants. People were staring out, anxious, but still pressing their faces against the glass. The curiosity of some never failed in surprising Tony. Even when their life was at stake, they couldn’t avert their eyes.

“You got my back?” Steve asked.

“Like a masseur,” Tony replied.

He helped Steve pummel the remaining Chitauri into the ground and then landed  before a coffee shop. People were cautious but as soon as they realized that the threat was gone, they poured out of the coffee shop, gathering around Tony and Steve, cheering and throwing questions at them.

“How's it looking guys?” Tony asked over the communication system.

Natasha sounded strained but satisfied. “I  don’t see any more of those bastards. We have some injured civilians, but Frigga came to take care of it. Get back here.” she said and hung up.

“Seems like we saved the day.” Tony breathed a sigh of relief

Steve broke into a loose smile. “Great work, Tony.”

Waving it off, Tony said, “Yeah, buddy, flattery won’t get you anywhere.”

Steve laughed. “How about I’ll treat you all to drinks this evening?”

“Great idea. But i have a bar at home.”

“That’s not the same! And, if you argument like that, I could never - ”

Jarvis’s voice cut through Steve’s sentence. “Sir, Miss Potts has just entered the Stark Tower.”

“What?!” Tony exclaimed, still on speaker. Steve stopped talking upon his outburst. “Put me through. And check Loki’s whereabouts.”

“Right away, sir. I am now connecting you to Miss Potts. Mr Odinson hasn’t moved from the Tower’s roof since the Avengers dispatched.”

“What is it, Tony?” Steve asked, catching onto his concern. “What happened?”

Tony spared him no answer and took off in the direction of the Stark Tower. Damn this mad god, they should’ve never left him alone.

“Tony? Are you alright?” Pepper asked as soon as they connected.

“Pepper, I’m alright, but I need you to do something for me. Don’t wonder about it too much now and get out of Stark Tower, alright?” Tony said, trying to control his anxiety at the thought of Pepper and Loki in the same building. “I’m hurrying back now, but I need you to leave before that.”

“What, why?” Pepper asked, confused, before she caught on. “Tony, what is going on in the building?”

“Okay look,” he said. “I know this is our private area, but we had to leave Loki there. He gave up on-”

“Loki?!” she exclaimed, and Tony winced. Pepper often was annoyed by him, but he knew that tone of voice. She only used it when she found that Tony had done something profoundly stupid and often dangerous. “Tony, I can’t believe you- !“

“Miss Potts, I must ask you to exit the tower now. This is a matter of your safety.”

Pepper let out a frustrated noise, before the rapidly clanking noise of her high heels followed. Tony let out a sigh of relief at the knowledge that she was leaving. “Don’t think I don’t know what you two are doing. Jarvis, you can’t always cover for him and Tony, we’re having a long talk when you -”

Static covered the rest of Pepper’s words. Tony tensed. Stark tech didn’t randomly have static like that.

“Jarvis, what happened?!” Tony asked, speeding the suit up. Blood rushed inside his ears and all he could think was: Loki was right . His preference of his superhero identity had once again endangered Pepper. “Pepper, Pepper, are you still there?”

“Sir,” Jarvis said. “My signal with the Tower has been disrupted. I’m attempting to reconnect right now.”

Tony heard the click the moment they reconnected and breathed a sigh of relief, only to freeze at the words he heard from the other end.

“Tony? Tony? What’s going on? The lights went off. I can’t see anything...”

“What?! Jarvis, what is going on in Stark Tower?”

“I’m afraid I cannot say, Sir. Something is interfering with the Tower’s system.”

Tony cursed. “Pepper, get out of there!”

“I don’t know where to go. Everything is full of smoke!”

“Where did all the smoke come from?! Jarvis, can you guide her?”

“The smoke came from an unknown origin, Sir, about two minutes ago. The ventilation system is not working and I’m afraid I cannot see Miss Potts from any of the cameras through all the smoke.” On a line directly connected to the Iron Man suit and not shared with Pepper’s line, Jarvis added, “Sir, a camera outside caught Mr. Odinson entering the living room.”

“ Loki! ” Tony hissed angrily. Of course it was him. Tony was an idiot having believed that he gave up. Thor had told him his brother was cunning. He should have taken it more seriously. Now that little rat had Pepper within his reach.. His mind scrambled for an idea. There was no way Pepper could get out of the Tower if she couldn’t see and Jarvis couldn’t assist. “Just… Pepper, just hide somewhere. I’m coming back right now!!”

He tried to not think about how ineffective it was, hiding against a man like Loki.

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” Pepper said, near tears as he heard clothes rustle as she moved. “I can’t believe you dragged me into something like this again.” Tony said nothing, knowing, she was a little bit like him when she was nervous, talking too much. He heard her take a deep breath, before saying, “Okay, I felt my way behind a couch.”

“Great, Pepper, you’re doing great,” he babbled. “Just stay there until - “

“Tony?” Pepper said in a small voice, and Tony felt his stomach drop. “I can hear someone breathing...”

“Pepper,” Tony started, not knowing what to say but so desperately wanting to be reassuring. Before he could say anything, a shriek rang out, short and loud. “Pepper? Pepper?!”

There was no reply.

Seconds later only, Tony reached his tower. A window burst before him and Loki crashed outside onto the floor, covered in a million glass shards. He coughed and struggled to get up.

“Where’s Pepper?!” Tony said. “What did you do?!”

” I haven’t done anything!” Loki said. His voice sounded strained. Without success he once more tried straightening up, but a thick glass shard had been driven right through his leg and he tried pulling it out.

Tony lifted his head and saw that the majority of his living room was filled with pitch black smoke. And then, there was Pepper, motionless on the floor in front of the panorama windows. He rushed to her side and knelt beside her.

“Jarvis,” Tony called, panicked. Please, please let her be alright.

“Miss Potts has a pulse, Sir,” Jarvis said. “She is merely unconscious with no visible wound, although her vitals are stran-” Tony startled, alarmed, when Jarvis cut himself off. “Sir, I detect an unknown presence in your vicinity.”

Tony’s head jerked up at those words, to the sight of a massive man lurking in the shadows, the sceptre in his hand shedding light on the man’s disturbing, grinning face.

“What a shame it is, to see a body this sweet inanimate.”

Tony recognized that raucous voice. He heard him speak, in Loki’s mind.

Thanos.

The words sent shivers down his spine.

“What business do you have with her? What are you?!” Tony spat.

“There is no business yet, but from now on we will have one.”

“And if I refuse?!” Tony asked, clenching Pepper’s prone body closer to him, knowing before the other man even spoke.

“She will never awaken again.” Tony gritted his teeth. “And I will crush this precious world of yours. You think that a meagre god was a threat to your planet? Think again.”

“What do you want?!” Tony stood.

“My body here is no more than a puppet, a copy. Yet I wield the power this minuscule god was unworthy of. It is the thing that can save your woman and I will take it away with me.”

“What do you want?!!!” Tony repeated, biting back the tears stinging in his eyes.

Thanos’s laugh made Tony shiver.

“Our business is simple. I want you to bring me the Tesseract and the Stone of Time, hidden somewhere in your world. Deliver them, and she will open her eyes and I will refrain from attacking this planet.”

“You are a fool if you think he will agree to that.” Tony didn’t have to turn around to know that it was Loki. “He has honour, contrary to - ”

“- you?” Thanos mocked. “You want to preach to me about honour? About love? People will do anything for love.”

Loki stopped next to him. “There is always more than one way to achieve something.”

“Not everyone stabs their loved ones into the back like you did,” Thanos said. “A human heart is weak. Eventually you will come around, Tony Stark.”

“What?” Tony said. “So all this fuss, ‘cause Loki betrayed you?!”

Why? He thought. Why does Pepper have to pay for this?

“It’s a win-win situation. However, you decide -and you will-, the terrible outcome will be his fault. He planned to bargain for redemption, didn’t you, little prince?”

Loki pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes.

“He led me here. For that he will never be forgiven. Won’t you cry now, king ?” He mocked, sneering. “Your fate was sealed ever since you fell into my hands.”

There was a moment of silence. Tony’s breath got stuck in his throat. Loki lowered his head. “Maybe,” he said. Then he raised his head. “Maybe I am guilty. But your time is running out and as foolish as I believe the man, Stark wouldn’t sacrifice his whole planet for one live, as precious it might be. So maybe yes, very likely that I am for the axe, but that will get you no step further.”

“Maybe I just like to play fair,” Thanos said. “Traitors get punished, that’s fair.”

He didn’t wait for Loki’s answer and spoke to Tony. “You should be careful with your decision. If you cooperate, I may just reserve you a comfortable spot in the world I am creating.”

“The hell you are creating anything,” Tony spat out. “You don’t know me. Let me tell you, you don’t blackmail Tony Stark.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Thanos said and his body dissolved, along with the smoke.

Tony sank down next to Pepper again and shook her. “C’mon, you’re not injured. Just open your eyes, Pep.”

“It’s hopeless,” Loki said.

Tony’s head snapped up, his eyes blazing with fury.

Although Loki could in theory still kill him, no fear was left, just pure pulsing rage.

“Shut up! You know what? He was right about one thing. This is your fault, your responsibility. How are you gonna make up for that? Do you even care?!”

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “Am I known as a caring person?”

Tony just glared at Loki and balled his fists. He said nothing, waiting.

Loki crossed his arms. “Why should I care? They’re going to behead me, justice served.”

“I don’t need justice served, I don’t care about your head, I care about Pepper! I need her back.”

Loki smirked. “Just hand over what he asked you for. You can start with this.” He retrieved the little blue cube from underneath his robes.

“How do you have this?!”

“Does it matter?” Loki held out the tesseract. “Take it. Getting your hands on the time stone should be easy enough.”

“Why?”

“You want to save the woman.”

“No, I mean why are you offering it to me?”

Loki shrugged. “By law, I am a dead man walking. I’d rather give the cube away then return it to Asgard.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tony said. “You’d be dooming your family with this. You’d be dooming your brother and mother. Not even you are capable of that.”

“You don’t know what I am capable of.”

“You’re testing me.”

“Am I?”

“You know what? I’m not playing his game and I’m not playing yours. Another way might not be apparent right now, but how can I call myself Tony Stark if I couldn’t invent one?”

He picked Pepper up and carried her towards the couch. As he laid her head down onto a cushion, everyone started filing in. Steve, Thor, Frigga, Clint, Bruce and at last, Natasha. The next half hour went away in a blur of concerned questions and looks. Clint blamed Loki of purposely endangering Pepper. Steve kept asking if there was any way to help her. And Frigga had to say again and again that there wasn’t any aid that she knew of. All Tony could do was stare at Pepper’s face and give brief answers. He barely heard Thor and Frigga confronting Loki. Tony was too engaged pondering to grasp the sense of their talk. His head ached.

Still, no one but him knew about the conditions Thanos had offered Tony. Save Loki. And Loki wasn’t going to enlighten the Avengers when they still see him as enemy and vice versa.  Tony knew the tesseract was still with Loki. He could still take him up on the offer and bail. He could even get away with it.

“Guys, I’m worked up,” Clint said. He turned to Tony. “Hey, you alright?”

Tony shook his head.

“Can I get you something? Something to drink?”

“No, thanks. You’re welcome to scavenge the bar though.”

Clint considered him for moment, then nodded. “Thanks.”

“I could use a drink too,” Natasha said.

“Guess we all could.” Clint agreed.

While everyone followed Clint to the bar. even Bruce who didn’t drink, Loki stayed behind and walked towards Tony. “Have you made up your mind? As my fate is sealed, I can claim I hid it somewhere. No suspicion directed towards you. Until it’s too late, that is.”

Tony stared at Pepper’s unmoving face. It hurt, knowing he could do nothing, not with his own hands. No amount of money in the world or hours of working in the lab could help her. Then, after a long minute, he shook his head. “I don’t want it.”

Loki stared at him. “I know Thanos very well. I spent more time in his presence than I wish I did. If he realizes you won’t cooperate, he will kill her. One way or another.”

“Is that any worse than what she is right now, not dead or alive? She wouldn’t even feel, it right?” Tony asked. “No pain.”

“Death is always full of pain.”

Tony wasn’t certain why he’d asked. This was a trolley problem. No right solutions.

“He cannot hurt her physically,” Loki went on.” But I am not so sure about her mind.”

Tony gulped. “He can torture her?”

“Being in possession of the mind stone, he now certainly has the ability to.”

“But...how is he going to kill her if he can’t hurt her physically?”

“A mind is feeble,” Loki said. “Easily manipulated, easily bent. People can hurt themselves.”

Tony gulped. His hands were cold.

“Then... I will make him believe in my cooperation.”

“And then what?”

The question hung in the air between them, for once leaving Tony clueless. He didn’t want Pepper suffering. He didn’t want her to die. She didn’t deserve that fate.

Even though he believed his own fate to be fixed, Loki had been more considerate than Tony would’ve given him credit for. After that murder attempt earlier, he wasn’t convinced Loki was concerned about his or Pepper’s well being, or feeling guilty for anything. To Tony this seemed a little fishy, but he knew from several experiences, facing the threat of death sometimes made people show a glimpse of their true heart. If this was a glimpse at Loki's, well, it only confused Tony more.

With Thanos’s attack on Pepper, Loki’s popularity sagged even more. No one wanted him around, but they needed to wait for Odin to conjure them back to Asgard.

Eventually they decided if they put the muzzle and handcuffs on him and Bruce stood guard in front of the door, the risk would be assessable enough. Tony agreed to watch him for a few hours in the early morning so Bruce could catch some sleep. Tony wondered if Loki still had the tesseract hidden inside his robes and wondered why he hadn’t told anyone yet. Was he still thinking of accepting Thanos’s offer? He couldn’t tell. Why was nobody thinking of it? He was the only one who had seen Loki in possession of the cube, but didn’t anyone else wonder where it had gone?

His bed felt empty without Pepper beside him. He had always been the one to warm her up, but still he felt cold and drew the sheets tighter around himself. He stared outside and wondered if her soul was flying around somewhere, just separated from her body, maybe floating in the empty space beside him. She was now in a bed for herself, surrounded by medical equipments in a hospital. He could still hear the aggressive sound of the heart-monitors ringing in his ears and his head wouldn’t stop hurting.

Sometime between 3AM and 4AM he dozed off a little. His dreams consisted of brief flashing images, none of them clearly recognizable. He saw Pepper, for sure. And Thanos. He saw a light. He saw darkness. He fell again, he realized it wasn’t him falling, realized being caught in Loki’s memories again. And then he woke up, sitting up in his bed. And he knew what he was going to do.

“What do you think, big guy think you can do that for me?”

Thor shot him weary look. “I don’t know, Anthony.”

“I just want to talk to him. I need to ask him...about Thanos, I want to ask him what he knows.”

“He won’t answer you.”

“He will. Okay, well maybe not. But I have to try. It’s about Pepper, I have to try everything! And he still has the handcuffs on.”

Thor placed his glass down onto the counter and looked out into the dark night. “Is this going to be a secret?”

“Not exactly,” Tony said.” But I don’t see why I should make a public announcement.”

Thor sighed.

Loki sat on his bed when Thor entered the room. It was dark, except for the moonlight streaming in through the window and it cast a ghostly light over Loki’s body. Slowly, on its own, the lights came on  in dimmed orange tones.

Thor looked at Loki, who didn’t raise his head. He seemed to be constantly scowling with the muzzle on his mouth and his eyebrows were drawn together in irritation.

Thor went to kneel before the bed and took the muzzle off.

“What is it?” Loki asked, piercing Thor with his gaze. It was good, Loki had listened to Frigga. But then again, Thor wished he would’ve listened to him. They had been so close and now there was nothing between them. “Stark...wants a talk with you.”

Thor stood up and looked Loki into the eye. His eyes once had been such a vulnerable thing to look at, they had always been dark, a deep sea, but now they seemed to reach into the depths of hell. “How have we come to this?” Thor asked. “We should be Shield Brothers.”

“Should we?”

Loki didn’t even blink. He just stared back and there was no way for Thor any more  to understand what was going on behind his eyes.

“I hope he doesn’t want you dead.” Thor said. “After what you did to his woman, he might have some influence on your sentence. He’s one of Earth’s most powerful men.” He balanced the muzzle in his hands and walked out.

Loki sat very still. And waited.

Tony stood in front of Loki’s door. If he stepped in there now and asked what he came to ask there was no turning back.

If you make a deal with Loki, that's final.

This was a stupid idea, it was bordering insane. Tony was about to turn back, roll into his sheets again and go back to sleep, because no good decision was ever made after 2AM. But then thought of Pepper again. He thought of her pale face between the pale sheets, the weak beeping of the heart monitor. And pushed down the door handle.

Loki’s eyes met his.

“You expected me.”

“Thor said you would come.”

“No,” Tony stepped into the room and closed the door. “You expected it all along.”

Loki smirked.

Chapter Text

“I won’t deny it.”

“Well,” Tony said and settled himself onto the couch that stood opposite the bed. “Tell me why I’m here.”

“That is because I do not want to die, nor do I like the alternative of lifelong imprisonment, both of which are very likely outcomes for my situation unless…”

Loki left the sentence unfinished on purpose and Tony figured that he expected him to finish it. “Unless there was someone who needs you alive and unconfined.”

“Exactly. I would like to show my good will about redeeming myself.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Loki leaned forward, locking his gaze with Tony’s.“No. And you need to be persuasive with my father. Saying ‘pretty please’ won’t do. I am your only hope, you are desperate and one of Earth’s most powerful men.Odin claims to be wise, he will aim to stay in peaceful conditions with you.But mostly, you are Thor’s friend and he will insist on helping you. And our mother will be on both my and Thor’s side. Therefore, he won’t have much choice but to agree.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tony said and raised his arms in defense. “ Slow down your horses. I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

“Why else would you come here? I was just trying to get the details across promptly.”

Tony leaned back into the cushion. Loki was right. That was the reason he was here,because he wanted to make a deal. But now he was in the same room with Loki and that altered the situation. In your memory you see a color, more vibrant than it ever was, a night sky with more stars than it ever had and a woman of astonishing and unreal beauty. Tony saw Loki in his memory, less vicious. Less threatening and dangerous than he really was. He could tell by a glance into the man's eyes that he was far from sanity and a man like that hardly spoke true words.

He was too eager. Or was he? The lack of good sleep was confusing Tony’s brain and he squeezed his brows together, forcing himself to concentrate.

“What now, Stark?”

“Shush, trying to think.”

Loki made nasty sound out of the back of his throat, but he went mute and waited. He sat still, but Tony saw him tap two fingers against his left hands palm repeatedly. Was he nervous? He had good reasons to be. If Tony refused the deal he would have to face life-long confinement. Or death.

Then again, maybe he was faking that tick. Tony tilted his head.

“Give it up.” Loki said.

“What?”

“Trying to see through me. If I was putting up an act, which I am not, you wouldn’t be able to see through it.”

He should’ve studied psychology after all.

All he could do was to rely on a trickster. It was the most paradoxical thing to do, yet the most logical. Tony stood up and held out his hand to Loki. “Right. Agreed. Let’s make a deal.”

Loki rose and took the offered hand. “Very well. Name your conditions. I believe we will need a contract.”

About twenty minutes later Tony left the room and shut the door. Thor was still leaning against the wall. “How did it go?”

“Good.” Tony said. “We made a deal.”

“What?!” Thor pushed himself off the wall.

“A. Deal.”

“What were you thinking?!”

Tony gulped as Thor's massive hands grabbed him by the shirt.

“I was thinking… that I want to save Pepper!”

Slowly Thor let go. “I assume you agreed on conditions.”

“Yeah.”

“Are they to your favor?”

“Loki wants me to convince your father that he deserves redemption.”

Thor sighed. Loki didn’t deserve a clean slate, but Thor had deep compassion for his brother and he would always hold onto the hope of getting close to him again. “You are my friend and helping people dear to you is a noble cause. Hereby I will help you within the range of my capabilities. But Father won’t allow you into Asgard.”

“But I need to talk to him! I need to persuade him!” Tony said.

Thor placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Let’s talk about this elsewhere.”

They settled down in the living room. Tony poured himself a drink, but he couldn’t sit down. He felt jittery, like ants were crawling up his legs. He felt like he needed to take action immediately. Maybe he was making awful decisions here. If so, he couldn’t tell. His brain had switched to Auto-Pilot. Emergency mode. Tony gulped down his whiskey in one big gesture. He was doing the right thing. He was doing the necessary thing. Still…

“What do you think about it?” he asked Thor, who sat on the couch, staring into space, the beer on the table untouched. He had a hard time sleeping too. There wasn’t a single giveaway like shadows under his eyes, nothing like that. Someone good at analyzing people could probably point out all the tell-tale signs. To Tony, Thor's entire self just seemed tired. Simple as that.

He reached for the bottle, but didn’t drink from it. “I think ...we are both compromised. Loki is exploiting our weaknesses.”

“I don’t feel like having much of a choice,” Tony said.

“Neither do I,” Thor agreed. “But look closely and you will see that we have. I would just have to let go of my foolish hopes.”

“And I would have to accept that Pepper could get hurt.” Tony paced back and forth, tightly clutching the glass. “What is Loki’s play? Does he really seek redemption? Do you believe that?”

“It seems unlikely,” Thor said. “Then again, I don’t know what he and Mother talked about.”

“She implied the talk went bad.”

“I don’t know. I think I was never good at guessing what Loki was thinking.”

“So, we’re back at this. I can’t be sure about his motivations. But I am willing to take that risk. For Pepper.”

Thor stood up, walked towards Tony and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders. “You are sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“I will talk to father,” Thor said. “I will pass on the conditions, and make it impossible for him to refuse.”

“This isn’t about helping me, is it?”

Thor let go of Tony’s shoulders and walked a few steps to stare out into the night sky. “I still consider him my brother. Do you think I’m a fool?”

Tony stepped up beside him. “No. But I think Loki is one for not seeing it.”

“He is. Seeing it. But Loki is still fretting over our past and he is not ready to forgive me.”

“He pushed me off the tree! He pushed me!”

“We were playing!”

Tony said nothing.

He didn’t talk to Loki anymore after this.

The night went by. Loki, Thor and Frigga took off to Asgard.

Seven days passed and Tony wondered if Loki had been killed after all. If so, was anyone going to tell him? He sat in a chair and watched Pepper’s unmoving face in the dimmed light. The intaking of his breathing seemed to have matched with the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor and he stared at the Mark Rothko he had hung up above her bed. It was two red and one eggshell yellow squares next to each other and it reminded him of life, of heartbeat. Up until now he had hated this kind of modern art. But Pepper had always loved it and now, for Tony, it stood for everything she had been. Neat and fiery. Compassionate but calm.

Tony buried his face in his palms, gritted his teeth and tasted tears on his lips. They were silent tears for a silent person. When the sun started to set outside, he decided to go home. He had been here for three days and after Loki had left, he hadn’t talked to anyone except JARVIS and blocked all calls. Steve had called. Bruce had called. Clint had sent him a text and Natasha once came by. He hadn’t let her in. He didn’t take any calls and never replied to the text. Tony hadn’t told anyone yet that he and Loki had made that deal, that when he had entered the room they had locked Loki up in after they had left seven days ago, he found the tesseract shoved under the bed like a shoe box.

When he arrived home, the lights slowly came on and JARVIS greeted him. Tony retrieved a bottle of whisky from the bar and sat down on the couch. He turned the TV on. The voices floated around in the room without meaning, he watched their faces and found that they were all really fake.

“Do I look like that when I’m being filmed?” he asked JARVIS.

“I can assure you Sir, you are never adjusted accordingly.”

“Good to hear.”

Nearly every channel broadcasted about the attack on New York. There were lots of speculations, for no one really knew what had been going on. Endless news about the existence of aliens. About their origin. Nothing about Loki though. No one had managed to get any footage of him. Some people were confused, they told the media that they had taken pictures or videos with their smartphones, but the man they had seen was just gone.

Tony kicked off his shoes and placed his feet onto the table. Pepper would have hated it. So what? She wasn’t here. He drank until he was able to laugh about a late-night comedy show. And then he fell asleep, the bottle slipping out of his hand and shattering against the floor.

“By the norns, this is disgraceful.”

“Shut up, Loki. Be considerate.”

A snort was heard. “Sure.”

“Where are those voices coming from?”

“It’s just the Television, Thor.”

“Don’t sound like that. I forgot.”

“I’m sure you did.”

The voices that made it through the thick fog into his head sounded familiar. Tony groaned. His head hurt so much. He felt like he wouldn’t be able to open his eyes. Until he felt the terrifying sensation of someone suddenly standing very close to him. Tony heard a crunching sound. He squinted one eye open and made out a blurry silhouette. He blinked. And as the image turned sharp he saw Loki, bent over him, staring right into his face. “Did you try to kill yourself?”

“Nooo…” Tony said. “Five more minutes Mommy, turn the lights off.”

Loki turned his back on Tony to face Thor. The glass shards he had stepped on crunched once more. “Is he serious?”

“He told me they call this a hangover here.” Thor said. “He had too much to drink.”

“I figured out that much.”

Tony wondered why everyone sounded so pissed. Maybe it was because it was so fucking bright in here. “Can someone pull down the shades? Jarvis?”

“I suggest you to sober up, Sir. Loki and Thor have returned.” JARVIS voice said, while the shades rolled down.

Slowly the sense of the words he had just heard got into Tony’s head. He pushed himself upright, eyes still tightly squeezed together and studied the people in his living room. “Ah,” he said, finally realizing that Loki was standing there. “I see your heads still on your shoulders. Nice.”

“I have brought the contract,” Thor said. “But I think it will be for the best if we save up all the explanations until you are...better.”

“I’m good, good, perfectly fine,” Tony said. He stood up, feeling a little wobbly, but he made it over to the espresso-machine. After pressing  the button for a double shot, he went to search for some painkillers in the drawers. He swallowed two of them along with the shots and half a glass of water. “Will take like...two minutes and I’m fine. You’ll see.”

He sank down onto a barstool. Thor walked over and placed a big piece of parchment onto the table. “You should get some rest before we discuss this.”

Tony felt bile rise in his throat. “Right,” he said. He stood up, hurrying past Thor and Loki into the bathroom. Bent over the toilet-bowl, Tony threw up until his throat turned sore. He flushed and sank back against the wall. His legs felt like jelly, they wouldn’t carry him if he tried to stand up right now.

He closed his eyes. Just for a little bit. To catch breath. His head fell back against the cool tiles of the wall. The bathroom suddenly seemed like the perfect place to sleep.

Until someone banged against the door.

“Anthony, are you alright?”

He groaned. “Yeaah, just lemme…, I need to…”

He struggled to get up again and opened the door. “Guess I really need a nap or two.”

“Do you need help?”

“That’s charming. I think I’ll make it.” Tony dragged his feet into his bedroom and plopped into the bed.

Ah, this was much better. So soft. He curled up in his blanket and closed his eyes again. Before he fell asleep, he wondered, for a moment, what Thor and Loki were going to do while he slept and imagined a funny scene of them struggling with his microwave.

It had dawned when he woke up again. A warm shade of orange spread through the windows over his blankets and somehow it made Tony feel hopeful. Loki had come back after all. He hadn’t realized earlier, due to his state of severe intoxication, how relieved he was. Maybe the moment when he had opened the Whisky bottle, he had given  up on his hope.

Tony took a quick shower, pulled on fresh clothes and found Thor and Loki still sitting around in his living room.,Loki stoically on one of the bar stools and Thor leaned back into the cushions on his couch to, watch a wildlife documentary on TV. He stood up when he saw Tony. “I see you are better, that’s good.”

“Sorry for that,” Tony said, massaging his neck.

Thor said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Loki said nothing. He stroked the parchment with his long fingers.

Tony walked over and bent over the table to have a look at it.

It said that Loki was obligated to help him save Pepper- referred to as Tony Stark’s partner- and bring her back to consciousness and full health. Furthermore he had agreed to avert any harm directed at Tony himself while they were pursuing that goal. If his good will was shown convincingly enough, the All-Father agreed to a complete redemption of Loki Odinson and his past deeds.

To control his actions -Tony frowned at the sentence- and prevent any situation in which Loki would manipulate or use Tony, he had agreed to having a wristband of runes engraved into his skin, which would allow the Asgardians to observe any use of magic he made. Loki’s activity was to be watched by his mother, Frigga herself and Heimdall, the Gatekeeper of the Aesir.

To Tony it seemed that the contract covered everything vital, but he still wished Pepper was around to proofread it for him. Instead he made Jarvis scan the document and search for potential gaps in the verbalization. As his AI confirmed to him that the contract was safe, Thor handed him a quill. “You need to place your signature exactly beneath Loki’s.”

Tony took it, hesitated for a brief moment, then scribbled his name across the paper. Loki stood up and held his hand out to Tony. He stared at it.

“Is it not common here to shake hands after sealing a deal?” he asked.

“No, I mean, yeah it is.” Tony slowly took Loki’s hand and they shared a firm handshake. “I just feel like I’m trapped in a Dali. Every moment now, Ants will crawl out of my face and devour me.”

Thor made a face. “What are you saying?”

Tony didn’t blame him. He never really cared about paintings and arts either, up until Pepper fell into a coma.

Tony stared at Loki’s arm. Engraved in his wrist were runes, glistening, snaking around his arm like liquid silver.

“Just that this whole thing feels surreal.”

Chapter Text

There were thirty-eight unanswered calls in Tony’s inbox and twenty-three Whatsapp messages showing concern for his wellbeing. It was time to tell the other Avengers what he had done. They wouldn't take the news well, but it would be even worse if he kept quiet about it and they found out later on their own. Frankly speaking, he thought he should be thinking, Screw it. You're Tony Stark. You need no one , but he didn't want to lose the Avengers, the people who were the closest thing he had to friends outside of Rhodey, Pepper and JARVIS. And what was more, Tony didn't think  working together with Loki was a good idea, especially without anyone knowing about it.

He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Clint, Bruce and Natasha.

Everything fine. Come by this afternoon. Got something to tell.

He called Steve, because even months after he was unfrozen he was still unable to use Whatsapp or even SMS.

Loki had settled down at the bar, obviously bored. He was flipping through some chit-chat magazines left neatly stacked there, by Pepper after she laughed at the gossip articles written about Tony with a glass of Elderflower Champagne in her hand.

Tony sighed. He wanted to visit Pepper again this evening, even though if he were to believe Loki, which he wasn't sure he did, it was pointless. Yet, a part of Tony still hoped for a maybe. Maybe she could hear him, maybe his presence could give her strength. Something, anything like that.

Or maybe he just wanted to see her exist and breathe, a selfish reassurance that he didn’t cause her death. A reminder that he still had time to save her.

Tony knew the edition of the Starstruck New York that Loki was reading, which he had to have out fished under the Weekly Bludger, a magazine known for purposely screwing with everyone and everything, including Tony's plans for clean energy. Not the plans themselves, but his intentions. They claimed he just wanted to look good, a superhero to everyone, even to environmentalists, and used the clean energy plans to polish his image because he obviously needed that.

Tony shook his head. He certainly didn’t.

That edition of the Starstruck New York was no better. It featured an article called “10 astonishing facts about your favorite Billionaire Superhero Tony Stark.” It had been written by a reporter who had a tad more talent in bed than she had for writing. But she had taken very personal experiences into account when drafting the article, therefore it contained the rather intimate fact number seven:

Pirate Games: Arrrrr! He also likes to go a little savage once in awhile.

Haven't you always dreamed of being someone else? Ranging from Action Heroes like Jason Statham to Frodo from Lord of the Rings or the guy that gets to bang Megan Fox in whatever movie, many love to dream themselves into the lives of someone else, to lose the baggage of their daily lives for just a bit und maybe also - and I am writing this while winking - experience a wildly romantic moment with a man of the sea. As unbelievable as it might seem, Mr. Stark loves losing himself in role plays. The mature way. As he told me in an exclusive interview, the role of funny and witty Captain Jack Sparrow has grown on him a lot, especially if he ends up stranded with a beautiful maiden and some bottles of rum. The only thing he would change is Jack Sparrow’s toothbrush once in awhile.

Tony knew it was quite the other way around. He remembered her requesting him to dress up,even insisting on the eye-liner. The only thing he couldn’t recall at all was her name.

The corners of Loki's mouth curled. But Tony figured that could also be due to fact number nine: Quack:Tony Stark never takes a bath without his rubber ducks.

Tony crossed his arms. “I see you're amused.”

Loki raised his head. “Do you think me respectless for being amused at a time like this?”

Tony shook his head. “No, I have a pretty flexible definition of respect.”

Loki tossed the magazine aside and stood up. “Good. Because if you wish your woman to be saved, you can't be so picky.”

“Her name is Pepper, dammit.”

Loki smiled. “Stop wasting time by her bedside. You only have three months.”

Just like you, Tony thought. Just like you, you bastard.

“Sir, the Avengers have arrived. Shall I let them enter?” Jarvis called out.

Loki raised his eyebrows.

“What?” Tony asked. “You think I'll tell no one? Forget it. Wasn't in the contract. I'm putting my life into your slim shady hands here. Not doing that without a safety net.”

“It’s reasonable,” Loki said. Tony barely believed him able to rate such things.

The elevator dinged , signaling arrival. Tony turned his back on Loki  and a complete set of Avengers - barring Thor, who was snoring away in the guest room - poured out.

Steve stepped out first. “How are you, Tony?”

“I’m fine. ” He gave Steve a half-hearted grin. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“You don’t seem fine.” Steve's face was full of concern and Tony hated being looked at with pity.

“I will be as soon as I save Pepper.”

“Is that what this is about?” Clint asked. “Because you wanted to tell us something?”

“Yeah, well...” Tony stepped aside, so they could see Loki. “Show, don’t tell.”

“Oh, Tony!” Bruce said. He seemed more delighted than Tony had anticipated. He leaned in and laid a hand on Tony's shoulder. “Is she yours?”

“What?” Tony drew his eyebrows together in confusion and turned around. “Oh, very funny.”

Hair neatly braided and held into two ponytails by white ribbons, a little girl sat on one of the barstools,  flipping through a magazine in a colorful little dress while swinging her legs back and forth. As if she didn't notice the gaze of five astonished pairs of eyes upon her, the girl hummed. Then she raised her head, grinned and said, “Uncle Tony told me everything about Boo-Bees just now!”

Natasha coughed violently. Clint patted her back. “I'm sure that's not what she means. Surely you mean those cute little Ghost Bees from that children's cartoon, don't you dear?”

“No, Boo-bees!” the girl insisted and  pointed at Natasha’s chest area. “I know all about it.”

“Tony!” Steve exclaimed.

“Did you look at her? She's barely seven!” Bruce said.

Tony crossed his arms. “Come on, that's not even a child.”

Now they all stared at him, as if he was mad. Which, considering the decisions he had made lately, he probably was. Tony, who had been worrying over  Pepper’s condition the last few days, was now torn between a temper tantrum and a giggle. No matter which one ends up prevailing, it threatened to explode right out of his chest.

“Right he is,” the girl said. “I am a witch, and I am at least a hundred years old.” And with those words, she jumped off the barstool, and transformed into a cat, which immediately began to rub itself at Tony's left leg. The thought of Loki rubbing his head against his leg made Tony nearly laugh, but instead, he opted to kick Loki away. Bruce squeaked, shocked. Tony waved it off before Steve could exclaim in outrage. “S’ okay. That's just Loki.”

Loki finally changed into his own form. Rubbing his hips in pain, he huffed out a laugh. “You can see the true character of men from the way they treat their animals.”

“Only you are no innocent animal, but a manslaughtering bastard,” Tony said.

Natasha’s hand shot towards her holster, grabbing at the gun. “What does this mean, Tony?”

The mistrust in her eyes made Tony's chest clench in pain. It's asking too much, he thought, to ask them to trust him after such a short period of time. But that was exactly the reason why he had invited them over, to tell them the truth. To be honest with them, as one should be with his friends.

“Clint,” he said. “Please, take down the bow.”

Something in his voice made Clint do it, but maybe it was just the fact that he didn’t add some half-assed joke.

Loki stepped up next to him, head cocked and lips curved in a smile. Tony wished he could afford to let Clint shoot him in the head with one of the explosive arrows. Clint inspected Tony, possibly searching for a tint of blue in his pupils that indicates he was being controlled.

Bruce rubbed the back of his head with his palm. He seemed nervous and didn't dare to cross Loki's gaze. Tony wondered if maybe the sheer look of him could make Bruce hulk out. “What are you trying to say with that, it's okay, it’s just Loki ?”

“He's going to help me save Pepper.”

“Tony!” Steve stepped forward. “How...”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Tony held up a warning finger. “Let me explain before you start the lecturing, Superman. I have no choice, not really. And for Pepper...hell, you know, I'd do anything.”

“Tony...” Natasha approached carefully. “What are you saying? We would have helped you.”

Tony looked at her, just a fraction and hoped to communicate through sheer eye contact how much it touched him to hear such words from Natasha, who was usually always the first to criticize him and point out her dislike. He hoped she would understand his feelings just like that, because he knew he would neither show them or tell her about them.

Slowly, he shook his head. “No. Yes. Surely you would've. But we don't have a clue about the world out there. We didn't even know It existed in the first place. And I don't know a thing either, about the asshole that turned the most wonderful woman I've ever met - no offense, Natasha - into Sleeping Beauty. But Mrs. Marple here,” he pointed to Loki, who obviously didn't get the reference, “has spent a bit of time with him. I’m walking a fine line here. Know it. But I don't have much time and Loki increases my chance of success.”

“How do you know he didn't hoax you into believing that?” Clint asked. “What's in there for him?”

“It's a good deal. If Pepper and I get out of this unscathed, he will be allowed to indemnify humanity for what he has done.”

Everyone looked at him in shock.

“If not,” Tony continued. He made a cutting motion across his neck. “Y'know, krrrk.”

“Sorry, Tony,” Clint said. “But we're talking about Loki here. How do you know he hasn't kept himself a backdoor open?”

“Oh, Odin feared that too,” Loki said. He stepped forward and pushed the sleeves of his garments back, revealing engraved runes of snakes that throbbed against Loki’s arm like they had a pulse. Like those snakes were alive,  little slimy beings crawling around under his skin. Tony imagined the sensation of it and shivered. Loki held out his arm for everyone to see it.

“Nice tattoo,” Clint said, sarcasm thick for everyone to hear. “So what?”

“Those are runes,” Loki explained. “What sets me apart from mankind is my sorcery, lifespan and physical strength. Using his suit, Stark can probably match up to my physical condition. As far as magic is concerned, everything I accomplish using witchcraft will be inspected by both my mother and our dear gatekeeper Heimdall. The runes were carved by my mother herself, designed to detect any attempt at tricking the enchantment to deter me from any...unthoughtful actions I might have in mind.” Loki grinned.

“Yeah, Thor said, that Frigga guaranteed that the runes will keep Loki under control,” Tony said. “I know it's not a safe thing, but it's as safe it as can be. I have to take the risk.”

“Speaking of which, why Thor not with us right now? God, I need to sit down...” Bruce said.

“Be my humble guest.” Tony gestured towards the bar. “Thor fell asleep and none of us could manage to wake him. It’s like the silence before a storm, his sleep. Look,” Tony said slowly approaching Bruce. “I still hope I could count on your help..”

The Avengers  sat down with him; only Clint remained propped against the wall.

Loki approached the table and leaned against it. As if he was one of them. Tony gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut and forced his gaze away from him.

Bruce rubbed his eye. “No. Sorry, Tony. I'm really sorry. But I can't do that...considering the...circumstances. I don’t trust myself around him.”

Loki snorted, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement among the Avengers to ignore him. Tony felt his chest clench, but he tried to shake it off with a smile. “It's okay Brucie, no hard feelings.”

Steve said, “I think we need someone to keep an eye on Loki. We need as much precautions as there are.”

“Oh, Captain, you're flattering me,” Loki said.

The silence that followed stretched like a resistance band. Tony felt his chest sink. Everyone stared at the table. Clint crossed his arms. There was a clicking sound, ice-cubes were melting in an otherwise empty glass, which once had contained a fair amount of Whisky. Natasha raised her head and looked at Loki. She didn’t avoid his eyes, as Bruce had done earlier. Natasha inspected him and Loki didn’t smile for a change.

“I'll do it,” she said. Her hands were fisted, resting on the table.

“I didn't know I had grown on you that much, Miss Romanoff,” Tony mocked. He had expected Steve, the honorable soldier, to volunteer first. He tried not to feel too flattered by Natasha’s offer. Most likely she found Loki highly suspicious anyway.

“You have not,” she retorted. “But you are the same amount of genius as you are an arrogant idiot, with whom Loki can’t be left alone.”

“Aw, come on, we'd be among equals,” Loki threw in.

Tony felt something bubble up his chest and realized he had to hold back a chuckle. Loki despised being ignored so much, he even slandered himself.

Clint pushed away from the wall and walked over to Natasha. “Then I'm in too. I won't let Nat do it alone, too dangerous.”

Steve rose. There was tension in his body that made Tony think he would start to object now, but instead he said: “Nice we got this wrapped up.” He grabbed Loki by the collar and yanked him into the air. In a first moment of surprise Loki sought in a rapid breath. Then his lips curled into a disdainful smile. “If you dare to betray Tony we will stop at nothing to make you undergo your original punishment.” He repeated the gallow gesture for a better understanding.

“It’s all right, Stevie.” Tony said. “Stop, I’m touched. I'll start bawling.”

Tony really was touched. Thank god he had learned controlling his tears, while watching Bambi several times.

Steve let go of Loki.

Loki didn't have great trouble maintaining his balance when he landed on his feet. He just laughed. “I doubt that any of your resources are sufficient to accomplish that. If in doubt I’ll just wait until you have all given in to old age. But be reassured, I hold no intention of backstabbing your friend. I have my own motivations.” Loki paused and stared out of the big panorama windows. “Thanos had the proclivity to believe he could push me around like one of his minions.”

“Oh, boohoo,” Clint said. “Someone hurt your pride again?”

“Okay, shush now.” Tony stood up and clapped his hands. He had to stay positive, drowning in guilt and depression would only cause his mental capacity to suffer. “You better have a plan,” he told Loki.

Chapter Text

Tony loosened his tie. He felt like he was suffocating and his window was wide open.

"Everything okay there, Tony?"

"I told you not to ask."

"You're withholding something."

Tony jammed his phone between his ear and shoulder. "Yeah, sure am."

"Tell me?"

"No."

"Tony.."

"Rhodey, it's not like a sex fling I can tell everyone about."

He could hear Rhodey’s deep intake of breath on the other side of the line. "You're getting yourself in trouble again, I can tell by your tone."

"My tone?" Tony stood up. "You can tell nothing by that, I am not that transparent. Listen, Rhodey, lovely you're worried about me, but I gotta hang up. Kinda busy here-"

"Tony!"

"I’m fine really! I have it all figured out, promise. Thanks again. For the worries."

"No, wait a second, Tony."

"Night."

Tony hung up. He liked that Rhodey was concerned about him, but he didn't want him involved in this matter. Clint and Natasha, they had at least a vague idea what they were getting themselves into. Thus Tony had trust in their abilities. And Rhodey was Tony’s best friend.  No way he was going to get him into danger, like he had with Pepper.

His door was pushed open, nearly without a sound and Natasha entered. It was likely she had been waiting in front of the door all along. "We have an issue Tony."

"Tell me news. We have a lot of them."

"That makes one more."

Tony intertwined his hands in a weird rubbing gesture. "It's got to do with Loki, right?"

"Fury demands us to turn Loki in."

"Well," Tony stretched his arms above his head. "Tell him: No. Loki is my pet. He'll need to get someone else to chew his slipper for him."

"You know him long enough. You know he won't laugh at that one."

Natasha turned to leave. Then she looked over her shoulder at Tony's ruffled bed. The pillow was on the floor, the blanket piled up in heap at the end of the bed. Tony fisted the fabric in his hand and forced a grin onto his face. A spy like her needed only one look at this mess to know how bad he was really sleeping.

“Well, come up with something, genius,” she said and left.

So Tony headed down into his workshop to call Fury.

“Seriously, what are you gonna do about it?” he asked as soon as the lines connected.

Fury raised an eyebrow. “Well, I see Natasha already filled you in about the...issue we’re having here.”

“No ,no, no,” Tony said, waving it off. “Your Issue. Hasn't  got anything to do with us.”

“As I see,” Fury said, stepping away from the screen. “It has everything to do with you, Mr. Stark.”

“Well look,” Tony pulled out the piece of parchment Thor and Loki had brought along. “I don’t have the nerves to deal with you. Alright? So take a close look at this. It’s a contract between me, Loki and his father. Someone, I take it you know, you shouldn’t mess with. I don’t think you wanna. Better to forget your stupid demands. And besides,” Tony cocked and eyebrow and smiled. “Again, I don’t really see what you could do anyway.”

Fury fell quiet for a moment. He studied the contract, then raised his eyes to Tony again. His face seemed calm, but Tony suspected, Fury was just very good at looking relaxed when he was actually irritated as a wasp sting.

“We will speak again, Stark,” he said and ended the call.

Tony didn’t see about what, but one like Fury might use such phrases to uphold their dignity.

---------------------------------------------------

“Thanos is seriously dangerous. He has a lot up his sleeve,” Loki said, pointing to a holographic screen, hovering in Tony’s workshop. Everyone had gathered around him, Clint and Natasha both huddled into a corner, looking suspecting.

“He is said to be immortal, due to a curse placed on him by Hel, the goddess of Death. Now, we can’t exactly be sure whether this is true or not, but we have to take it into account. He is a skilled magic user, able to manipulate energy, as well as performing telepathy. As far as I can assess-”

“Sorry,” Clint interrupted, not sounding sorry at all. “Couldn’t we just outsmart him somehow and retrieve the mind stone? We don’t have to destroy him to save Pepper, do we?”

Loki pressed his lips together and studied him cooly. “Technically yes. However you’re forgetting, that he also threatens to eliminate your planet. “

“Can he?” Natasha asked, while studying her nails. “Up until now he couldn’t even reach Earth, well”-  she looked up - “not without you anyway.”

“I am certain he will find ways in the future.” Loki shrugged. “But it’s up to you. I’m perfectly fine with saving the woman and leaving to serve my redemption. I don’t care whether your home gets wrecked or not.”

“Yeah, we saw that,” Clint muttered.

“Guys, that's not constructive,” Tony said. “I think while we’re already at it, we should as well try to stop the guy. But if he’s really immortal” - he shot Loki a prompting look - “how could we do that?”

“Restraining him in some way might be a possibility.” Loki said.

“In what way?” Natasha enquired.

Loki said nothing.

“Oh great,” Clint said. “ Anyone tell me again, why we’re keeping him around. He isn’t exactly pleasing to look at either.”

“Now, that's just not true,” Loki said. He shifted his attention away from Clint, towards the screen again. “Basically I know how Thanos thinks and who he's got on his side. We have to find out where exactly he is hiding. Hopefully, we can work out a way to exploit his weak spots. The most important thing, however, is that we must stay unnoticed. And”-  he circled the two glowing stones, representing the infinity gems - “we must make him believe that you are working on fulfilling his demands, Stark.”

“So basically we’re up to some extraterrestrial detective work?” Tony commented and crossed his arms. “Doesn’t sound too effective.”

“You cannot challenge an opponent like Thanos head on. You have to sneak your way-”

“Yeah, you're good at that, right?” Clint said.

“Would you stop cutting me off, Barton?”

“Sorry, but you’ve got such a tiring way of explaining stuff,” Clint retorted. “What you’re saying is, we do some spy work on other planets, see if we can find anything about the fucker and then we hit him unexpected and win.”

“Your summary was not essentially shorter than my explanation,” Loki said. “I would say it was merely less elegant in word choice.”

“Oh shove your poetry up your ass, you prissy shakespeare god.” Clint snatched his jacket from the backrest of his chair and stormed out of the room.

“He needs more sleep,” Natasha explained dryly. Then she got up as well. “Tony, if you don’t mind, I would like a look at that contract you made with Loki.”

“Sure.” Tony pulled the parchment out again and handed it over to Natasha. She took it, sat back down and read. At some point she stopped and raised her gaze. “What is this redress thing about? What are you supposed to do?”

The question was meant for Loki. He bit his lip and leaned against the wall. “I don’t know yet. I think my task of great redemption is still being decided upon.”

“I sure hope it will be humiliating as hell,” Natasha said and carried on reading.

------------------------

Loki was still tinkering around with the holographic screen when Natasha left. Tony watched him in silence, as he arranged different planets around Thanos and connected them to people and other details.

Tony stepped closer. “Are we really leaving Earth?”

“Yes,” Loki said and pointed to a planet. “Look at this planet, Stark. It is called Ehinheim. Recently there has been frequent incidents of people vanishing there. It might have something to do with Thanos. It is as good a place to start searching as any other.”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” said Tony.

“You seem bitter, Stark”

“Oh, well. Maybe cause my girlfriend is in a deadly comatose and I don’t have a decade to wander around on alien planets, searching for clues.”

“It is this or nothing,” Loki said. “If you don’t want to waste any time, I suggest you go and ask Thor provide us with a spaceship.”

“Why don’t you just ask yourself?”

Loki simply glared.

Tony suppressed his anger, bubbling up into his throat, due to the impatience and fear that was filling his every bone. Loki turned away from him, unfazed. And Tony left.

To wake up Thor. If a Wolfgang Petry Hitmix played at full volume was fruitful, that was.

---------------------------------------------------------

Thor returned to Asgard the next day, leaving with the promise to send Tony a fitting vehicle as soon as possible. He had clasped his big hand over Tony’s shoulder and looked at him so sincerely that Tony had to avert his eyes. He awkwardly freed himself from Thor's grasp and waved him away.

Loki had locked himself up in the guest room. He was still adding information into Tony’s database. Now and then Tony would sneak a peek into it. It was being filled with details about several planets Loki had in mind and the incidents that occurred there. He had also added everything he could remember from his time under Thanos’ command. How the base had been constructed, where Thanos was seated, which creatures stood guard at which point. There was a lot to process.

Tony was, against his will, amazed by the quality of Loki’s memory.

Not even the color of the walls inside Thanos base had escaped his mind. Tony guessed that detail could prove itself very important, should they need a color themed map of the place.

--------------------------

Tony walked upstairs into his living room to find Clint stepped up on a barstool, scanning the ceiling, obviously searching for something. Natasha stood behind him, craning her neck. “Its right above you, I think you might need to move back a little.”

Tony stepped into the room. “What the heck are you doing?”

Clint climbed down from the chair, moved it a little and got back on. “We found a grasshopper.”

“Here?” Tony asked. “How did it even get up here?”

“Well however he did it,” Natasha said. “The poor guy landed himself in the worst place imaginable, with you and that lunatic.” She nodded in the direction of the guestroom. “So we were trying to save him.”

Clint managed to shove a piece of paper underneath a glass, he had placed above the critter. He put the glass on the counter and faced Tony. "Whats up?"

"I'm going to visit Pepper."

"Again?" Natasha asked.

"Well, before we leave." Tony said.

Natasha and Clint exchanged a look. Clint cleared his throat.

“What?” Tony asked. “Come on, I sense, you’re hiding something from me here.”

“No, we just had a talk about that.” Natasha said.

Tony crossed his arms. “Growing insecure about your decision already, are you?” It felt like he had seen it coming all along. “If you want out, go on. Say it. I won’t judge you for not putting your life on the line.”

“No, we promised you we’d come.” Clint said. At that Natasha gave him a long look, but Tony couldn’t quite figure out its meaning.

“Oh fuck the pinky swears, this is your life we’re talking about. You know what, I’m leaving now. You think it over in the meantime.”

And with that, Tony quickly stepped into the elevator and pressed a button down to ground level, not looking at Clint or Natasha at all. The last thing he wanted was to guilt trip them into this journey. But if they weren’t coming along, who was? Was he going to go on an adventure in space with Loki only? Now, that was a scary thought.

Every time Tony visited Pepper in the hospital, she seemed to have grown more beautiful. Time really makes the heart fond. A nurse had removed her make-up and Pepper’s cheeks were a little fallen in, but Tony just missed her so much. She was like days of youth, growing more precious the longer they were gone.

He watched her face for a moment in the dim neon light, then pulled up a chair next to her bed and set down. “Hey, Peps,” he said. “It’s me, Tony.”

He clasped one of his hand over hers. Contrary to his fear, it was warm. “I know you’d be really mad at me if you knew what I’m getting myself into right now, but I’ll do anything for you and I promise I’ll do everything I can to see you open your eyes again. The thing is,” Tony hesitated and looked sideways, towards the nightstand. There was a vase, slightly withered flowers in it. He would have the nurse bring fresh ones for sure.

He turned back to Pepper. “It’s just I don’t know if i’m coming back. Stuffs really...harcore this time. I just came by because…,” he gulped. “...guess I wanted to tell you how much I love you, in case I’ll not make it. And I hope you can hear me somewhere in there, because I do. I do love you so much.”

He squeezed her hand harder and took a deep breath as a tear ran down his cheek, leaving a salty trail. The heart-monitor was still beeping, like a monotonous voice telling him that Pepper was not here. Just a living organism without a soul, with a heart rate unaffected by anything.

When Tony came home, Clint and Natasha were still there. Natasha nodded at him and hinted a smile. Tony felt immense relief wash over him. It made him at least two times lighter.

“Rhodes is here.” she said. “He's waiting for you in your workshop. I didn’t know if he was filled in about the situation, so just in case, I didn’t tell him about Loki.”

“That’s good,” Tony said. “He's not filled in. Hey, you guys can order some food for us if you want. It’s on me. Anything's fine.”

He walked down into the workshop. Rhodey had sat down on one his car sofa and was reading something on a Stark tablet. He stood up when he saw Tony come in, and walked over to crush him into a hug. “I’m so sorry, pal.”

Tony sank into the embrace for a second, then he slowly pushed his friend away. “I just visited her. She’s holding up fine so far.”

“What even happened to her?” Rhodey asked.

“Some alien kidnapped her soul and now he’s blackmailing me.”

Rhodey seemed about to crack a grin, when he realized. “You’re serious.”

“Sounds like a trash movie plot, I know.” Tony said. His phone started vibrating in his pocket. Tony decided to ignore it.

“Let me help you.”

“No.” Tony shook his head. “No, you’re not getting yourself into this. It’s bad enough Pepper got involved in my shit. I won’t let you. Its ultra hazardous shit this time.”

“You’re my friend, Tony,and so is Pepper. I’m not leaving you alone in a situation like this.”

“But I want you to!” Tony said. “I already have people who are gonna help me. And the good thing about them, they know what they’re getting into and one of them, I don’t even give a fuck about.”

He sat down on the couch with a deep sigh and buried his head in his hands. Rhodey seated himself next to Tony and put an hand on his back. Tony looked up. “Look, I will be gone for some time. If you want to do something for me, pay Pepper a visit from time to time. Maybe she’s still in there somewhere and can hear what’s going on around her. I wouldn’t want her to be lonely in that case.”

Rhodey nodded. “Sure, yes, of course I can do that.”

“Sir,” Jarvis voice resounded from the ceilings.”Miss Romanoff wants me to tell you that dinner’s ready.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, then turned towards Rhodey. “Hey, grab a bite with us, alright?”

Tony was oddly reminded of the second Harry Potter movie, when he entered his living room. Because Loki was like the bad egg of a child that you better leave in his room when you have visitors. In his case, not because visitors upset him, but because he upsets visitors.

Rhodey froze when he saw him. Rhodey knew who he was. He had flown one of the helicopters when the Chitauri attacked the city.

Loki made a sound like “Oh,” and put down his glass on the counter. Clint and Natasha were watching the scene with anticipation and a safe distance from Loki.

“Is this the kind of people you’re allowing to help you?” Rhodey asked. He may have sounded calm to anyone, but Tony knew it was strong irritation, masterfully suppressed by an almost robotic and unemotional tone.

“That’s the one I give zero fucks about, okay?” he said. “But I need him.”

Loki smiled to himself.

Rhodey grabbed Tony by the shoulders. “You need him?! How can you trust someone like that, Tony? Have you lost your mind?!”

“Maybe!” Tony raised his voice too now. “Pepper is in a coma and I have three months time to find some alien guy in space and rob him of a powerful artifact that ninety percent of all the stuff crawling out there would love to have. And it’s not like I have a navigation system out there. Goddamn,” Tony palmed his forehead. “I’m growing sick of explaining myself; it gives me a headache. Rhodey, I’m doing this to save Pepper’s life, alright? “

Rhodey inhaled sharply. “There has to be other ways to do that. I mean, he,” he pointed at Loki. “He probably even brought this on you. And now, you’re trusting him to get you out of the mess he got you into in the first place.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony repeated. “If it saves Pepper, I don’t care at all.”

“Yeah, I see that, ” Rhodey said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I think I need to skip dinner.” He scanned the packages of Chinese takeaway on the counter. “Uhm, Chinese is not really my thing.”

He backed into the elevator, avoiding Loki’s gaze. The doors closed with a ping and he was gone.

“He’s lying,” Tony said. “He loves chinese.”

“That didn’t go too well,” Loki said. He poured himself another glass of water and drank.

“You shut up.” Tony could feel the irritation itching beneath his skin. “I’m sure it’s not coincidental that you decided to come out of your room now.”

“Actually I was hungry,” Loki said. He took a spoonful of fried rice and pointedly ate it in front of Tony. "But this is one atrocious disgrace one can do to food, I have decided otherwise."

He turned to leave.

"Great!" Tony barked, still riled from Rhodey’s reaction. "We have officially decided what we're gonna eat from now on. Chinese it is then."

Loki peeked over his shoulder and it looked like he was smirking a little. Not the slightest bit worried about the fact that he himself might have no choice but to eat nothing but this atrocious disgrace of food soon enough.

Natasha stood up and started piling noodles and rice onto plates. Tony’s stomach growled. To him, this smell was just heavenly. Loki had no taste at all. Tony’s phone started vibrating once more. This time he pulled it out of his pocket and saw that the caller ID was "Cancer Child Care". It rang a bell somewhere but he couldn't quite pinpoint it. He walked out of the kitchen and took the call. "It’s Tony Stark. What can I do for you?"

"Oh," a woman answered. Her voice sounded flustered. She obviously hadn't expected him to answer the phone. "Mr, Stark, I...I am honored. Well, I was actually trying to reach Ms. Pepper Potts. This is the second number we were given. She is in charge of our organisation and she’s-"

"-in hospital." Tony interrupted. "I'm sorry." He remembered now. When Pepper had founded this organisation, intending to provide care for orphans who suffered from cancer, he had mocked her for the all too obvious alliteration she had used in the name.

"Oh, God, my excuses," the woman said. "I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Is she alright?"

"She is not conscious at the moment," Tony said. "If it's something urgent, you can tell me."

"Yeah," the woman said, still sounding slightly out of it. "Yes, uhm, there is a matter that needs to be addressed."

"What happened?"

"Well, usually we only take in children who suffer of cancer. Now we have a pair of siblings whose parents have been involved in a car accident this morning. They don't have any close relatives and the little boy has cancer, so the Youth Care asked us to take him in. But he also has a big sister and they refuse to be separated. And personally I think, my apologies , if we kept them together, that’d be better. It's just, we don't usually do that, well, we didn't have a case like this before. That's why I wanted to confer with Mrs Potts about it."

Tony sighed. That was such a horrible thing to happen. Why would  they even needed to ask what they were supposed to do?

"Of course you can keep them together, don't worry about any expenses." he said. "Make these kids as comfortable as you can. They've had enough shit as is."

"That...was what I was thinking," the woman said. "I'm so glad, thank you, Mr. Stark."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Listen, I'm going to be out of town for some time. And Mrs. Potts condition might not improve soon, so for any further issues like this, I'm putting you in charge."

"Mr. Stark, I can't, I mean, I wasn't employed to..."

"What  exactly is what your position in this organisation?" he asked.

"I'm looking after the children mostly," she said. "I mean, I'm no doctor, I..."

"You know these kids, I'm sure it will be fine," he said.

He hung up, before she could say anything else. There was nothing to say. He didn't have time to refill the position that Pepper left vacated.

And if it was a money issue, well, he did have enough of that, did he?

Tony shoved his phone back into his pocket and walked back into the living room.

"In case, you wondered," Clint said, in between slurping noodles. "We've made a decision."

"A final one this time?" Tony asked. "Do tell."

"We wouldn't be here, let alone eat chinese on your account, if we were ditching the mission," Natasha said. "And you know that, Tony, don't play dumb. What was this all about though?"

She nodded in the direction of the elevator. "Didn't Rhodes know about all this?"

Tony shook his head. "I wasn't gonna tell either. He is not going to be involved."

Natasha nodded. Clint slurped. "You know, we ordered the most expensive takeaway we could find."

"It's still not good enough for Loki," Natasha said. "But it's not like we thought of getting him anything. I thought he wasn't required to eat or anything of the sorts. Surely, I’ve been getting this whole god-thing wrong."

"You think it's like Harry Potter?" Clint asked. "That food falls in the category of those things that you can't conjure up?"

"Even if it did," Tony said, chewing. "He isn't even allowed to pull a rabbit out of a hat."

------------------------------

Tony spent the rest of the day deciding which things from the workshop he needed to take along. He decided to call it a day at eleven, when he felt greasy and tired all over and was finally done. He had decided to take everything required to create more of his new element in case he ran out of batteries in space, as well as all the tools to modify or repair the Ironman-Suit should it prove necessary.

He had told Thor specifically to make the spaceship a big one, so taking along nearly everything in his workshop shouldn't be an issue.

Tony fetched a towel from the bathroom and wiped his hands. He would take one drink and then go to bed.

When he arrived upstairs, Loki was leaning against the counter with a glass held between his outstretched fingers. Next to him was an empty Chinese food carton.

Tony rested his shoulder against the doorframe. "So hungry after all?"

Loki smiled to himself. "Never fly into space with an empty stomach."

"That's what they say?" Tony asked.

"That's what I say."

"Well," Tony said, pushing himself upright again. "Since you seem to know where everything is..." he said, "Why don't you pour me a drink?"

Loki placed his glass on the counter and actually moved. Tony sat down, watching Loki fetch another and shove it across the counter. It stopped right in front of Tony's hand.

"Thanks," he said.

Loki, without a word, returned to his original position and continued staring into space, while occasionally taking a sip, of what Tony recognized as Scotch, after tasting it.

"You have been visiting your woman?" Loki asked.

"That's really not your business," Tony replied. "Are you honestly trying to engage me in smalltalk?"

"Of course not,. Loki emptied his glass and placed it in the sink. No way was he gonna clean it. Tony hadn't expected him to.

"I was merely curious whether you've said your goodbyes," Loki went on.

“Yeah I did,” Tony said.

“Well, that was wise,” Loki said and walked away.

Tony took a sip of his drink and tried not to feel uneasy. Surely Loki only meant that it was going to be a dangerous journey and the outcome was unknown. Surely he didn’t mean what Tony thought he meant. But the feeling was hard to suppress, because for a moment there, Tony had the impression that Loki was certain that he would die.

Chapter Text

The doorbell rang Tony out of his sleep in the morning. A few months  ago he would’ve hated being so rudely awakened, but now his dreams were more and more shadows and fear and he was almost thankful for waking up. He sat up in his bed. “Jarv, who is it?” he asked. The dream was already gone, but it lingered somewhere in the back of his mind and the hairs on his arm were standing upright.

“It is your friend, Colonel Rhodes,” Jarvis said.

Tony blinked. He felt a bit lighter now. So Rhodey had come back after all. He smiled to himself.

“He has brought someone,” Jarvis added.

Tony paused in the movement of putting on a sock. “What, who?”

“I do not recognize him. Shall I do a face scan?”

“No, no.” Tony waved it off, yawning. “I’ll go see myself. Just let them in and switch on the espresso machine.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

“Any activities indicating that Thor might return?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Tony sighed and got dressed. Rhodey was in his kitchen. Next to him was a tall, lean man. He had those wrinkles in the corners of his eyes that people got when they laughed much. But at the moment, his mouth was pulled downwards.

Rhodey stood up. “Tony.”

Tony smiled. “Hey, there.”

He made his way past him towards the coffee machine. “Wanna have a coffee?” he asked the stranger. The man nodded. “Thanks.”

“Tony, this is Nathan.” Rhodey said.

“Yeah.” Tony placed three cups underneath the coffee machine. “What I’m wondering about, is what he is doing here.”

“If I may,” Nathan said. “Colonel Rhodes has informed me about your current situation. I’m very sorry to hear what happened to your partner.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, turning around. “Thanks for that, really. But can we get to the point where you tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Sit down, please, Tony.” Rhodey gestured towards a chair. Tony provided everyone with a coffee and followed his request. “I’m sitting.”

“You know I’m not fond of the idea of you teaming up with a man like Loki. You can’t even grasp everything that makes me uncomfortable about it. He’s basically an alien, right? And he attacked Earth with the intention to overturn our government or something. That’s another one of those things which make me uneasy, no one tells me anything.” He reached for the cup and poured some milk into his coffee. “I can understand you don’t want to drag me into this, though I’m offended-”

“You shouldn’t be,” Tony said.

Rhodey shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I said I’m not leaving you alone in the situation and I’m keeping that promise. Nathan is one of my best soldiers, smart, reliable. He will keep an eye on you and Loki for me. I want you to fill him in on what you are about to do.”

Tony snorted a short laugh. “Rhodey, that’s... not really something you can just fill someone in about. This mission is batshit crazy. It’s nothing anyone would - ”

“I would,” Nathan said, his hands tight around his cup. “Mr. Stark, I have been pushed to a point where a normal life is not what I want anymore. I know it sounds bitter, but I don’t care about living itself very much at this point. And that’s perfect, since Colonel Rhodes wants me to care about YOU staying alive. I owe him.”

Tony stared at him, then buried his face in his hands. “You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into.”

“I know that you are planning to travel with a dangerous criminal that had allowed strange aliens into our city. I know that it is best if someone accompany you and keep a close watch on Loki.” Nathan’s voice was firm.

“We’re going to fly into space to steal from a far worse criminal than Loki,” Tony said, “and if we’re lucky, we’ll even have a reasonable chance to live through it. But maybe not. You never know.”

“Mr. Stark,” Nathan said. “I am aware. I want to contribute to raising those chances for you. You care about Colonel Rhodes life and that is why you won’t allow him to assist you, but you don’t have to care about my life, you really don’t. The best way to respect my life, is in this case even, allowing me to help you.”

“Please Tony,” Rhodey said. “I know Nathan is the right man for this. He’s been a spy for many years. He’s properly trained. And I wouldn’t send him along if I wasn’t sure about his determination or motives.”

Tony sighed. “Ok, let’s make you sign a nondisclosure agreement or something. Then I can tell you all about our undertaking, and you can think about this again.”

“Fair enough,” Nathan said. “I’d like to know what I’ll be facing to better prepared.”

Tony took a deep breath and released it, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “I still can’t believe you really want that.”

--------------------------------------------------

Nathan didn’t change his mind. Tony left him time until the next day to think about it Insisted, in fact,  even though Nathan was sure he didn’t need it. And true to his words, the next morning, three hours before Thor arrived with the spaceship, Nathan called to inform Tony that, Yes. He was still sure about all of this.

Tony sat down in his living room, waiting. There was not much else to do now. He read some magazines, the letters blurry and meaningless before his eyes. He turned on the TV only to, appalled at all the insignificance, turn it off again. In the end, he finally sat down at his bar and just stared out of the window, waiting for the moment in which he would finally leave all this behind. Loki stepped into the room and leaned against the doorframe. “Do you think it is a good idea to involve a stranger?”

“I think,” Tony said. “My best friend trusts him and I certainly trust my best friend more than I trust you.”

Loki shrugged. “I’m just encouraging you to reflect on your decisions. I have a bad feeling about this man.”

“God.” Tony covered his eyes with his left hand and rubbed at his temples. “Can you hear how you sound? Like Donald Trump, trying to tell me that money isn’t what will make me happy in life.”

“I don’t get the reference.”

“It’s contradictory as fuck,” Tony said.

“Maybe I am,” Loki said. “But maybe, being one you would call untrustworthy, I am good at recognizing my kindred spirits when it comes to that particular trait.”

“Don’t doubt that,” Tony said. “But here I think you’re just trying to rid yourself of another pair of alert eyes.”

Loki smiled. He made his way over to the coffee machine, placed a cup underneath it and pressed a button. Tony watched him. For a moment there, he almost seemed human. No, screw it. Tony had to keep his guard up around this guy.

“Thanks,” he said and snatched the cup from under the brewer.

“Sir, I believe Thor is returning,” Jarvis said. “Our sensors have picked up some extraordinary energy spikes.”

Tony took a gulp of his coffee and grinned at Loki. “On to pack your suitcase, Harry Potter. Don’t forget your cloak and wand.”

“I have everything I need,” Loki said and wandered off to the window. He leaned forward and glanced upwards. Only seconds later, bolts of lightning sparked against  the surface of the Stark Tower and Thor landed on the roof. Jarvis opened the doors.

“Sorry it took so long, Stark,” Thor said. “I had some trouble parking the...vehicle.”

“Where is it now?” Tony asked.

“Oh, uhm.” Thor walked in, ignoring Loki. “Right outside your atmosphere. I’m afraid you have to take another spaceship to get to it. But you humans have those, right?”

Tony didn’t have spaceships of his own. But he had money and that was even better. Money was the possibility of possessing everything. And he wouldn’t have much trouble getting a spaceship from NASA after he had reminded them of several favors they owed him.

Besides, he would give it back. It was like lending a rental car for a relocation.

He called Natasha and Steve. Then he wrote a message to Rhodey, because Nathan hadn’t returned yet and he didn’t have his number.

Natasha arrived an hour later and Tony immediately knew something was wrong. She was accompanied by Steve and Bruce, but Clint was nowhere to be seen.

Natasha faced him. “Clint won’t be coming.”

“What happened?” Tony asked.

“Me,” she said. “I know that we  agreed to help you, but I found out just some days ago, that he has a family, a wife and children. I told him not to come, and when he wouldn’t agree I forced him to stay.”

Tony noticed that he’d been holding his breath. “What did you do?”

“I asked Fury to arrest him.” Natasha grabbed a glass and poured herself some water. “He will be released when we are gone.”

Tony wanted to be mad. But he could understand Natasha’s motives. If anything, he was mad at Clint. How could he leave his family behind just for him? No, it couldn’t even have been for him. They were not that close. Why would Clint do that?

It’s the same reason you always choose Ironman over Pepper, a nasty little voice in Tony’s head whispered.

Loki spoke, made the voice retreat into a dark corner of his brain again. “Oh, why, it seems, we will have it very cozy in that spaceship, won’t we. Miss Romanoff?”

Natasha kept a straight face.”I don’t think so.”

Bruce stepped forward and only then did Tony noticed that he carried a suitcase. He stared. He was too astounded to speak, let alone crack a joke.

Bruce smiled weakly. “Oh well, One can’t leave Nat alone with you and…” He glanced at Loki, who had been watching the scene, with a faint smile on his lips. “However, I’m here. Hell, Earth hates me anyway.”

The elevator rang again. Everyone turned around. Rhodey emerged, Nathan following close behind him.

“Who is that, Tony?” Steve asked.

“Oh, that. Well, that happened too fast to tell you about it. I forbid Rhodey to come, now this guys accompanying us instead. Good soldier, good man,” he said, with a sideways look towards Loki. “Right, buddy?” he then asked Rhodey.

Rhodey nodded curtly. “That’s right.”

“Alright,” Steve said. “So, when are you leaving?”

“As soon as our spaceship is ready to be boarded. Jarvis, how long will it take?”

“Another hour or two, Sir.”

“Well,” Tony said, spreading his arms . “Guess it’s time to say our goodbyes then.”

Rhodey gulped and stepped forward, pulling Tony into a very forceful hug. Tony hugged back just as tight. “You better come back alive, you asshole.”

Tony patted his back. “Yeah, I love you too, Rhodey.”

Rhodey sniffed, then quickly composed himself. “And don’t let yourself be fucked over by that fruitcake.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, but he stayed silent. Steve approached Tony. “Well, I was going to say that too,” He patted him on the shoulder. “Be careful, Tony. And good luck.”

“Thanks, Stevie.” Tony replied. He looked around the room. “An adventure in space. That’s what all kids dream of, right?”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They boarded one of Tony’s jets. It took them to the NASA headquarters, where they got on a spaceship. They had to wait while the rest of Tony’s stuff was being moved, but then finally, they took off.

It took them only about eight minutes to get into orbit. It always amazed Tony that leaving the planet took less time than reaching his favorite cinema with his fastest sports car. Loki didn’t seem marveled at all. If anything, he looked rather bored. Not surprising, what with the spacecrafts they probably had in Asgard.

“So, where’s your parking lot?” Tony asked Thor.

“Fly north from here and then a little to the west,” Thor told the pilot. “I think we should see it by then.”

“Is it that big?” Bruce asked.

“No but it’s got a horrible red paintjob.” Thor replied.

It sure does, Tony thought, when the ship finally came into sight. Thor had been right, it wasn’t the biggest of all spaceships, but it seemed sufficient for Tony to put his instruments in.

“Okay,” Thor said. “I’ll move over and open the entrance. It’s only a short distance, but I guess you should put on some...how do you call it?”

“A spacesuit.” Natasha said.

“Right.” Thor nodded and made his way over to the other ship, while everyone started putting on the suits. Loki stood in a corner, watching them with amusement. To someone unfamiliar with it, the gear had to look beyond stupid.

“Okay, how do we get my stuff into that fire truck?” Tony asked, while putting on the helmet.

“Maybe Thor can move it,” Natasha said. “He’s a strong guy, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Tony bit his lip. “He’s a little too rough for my tastes.”

“If I may,” Loki said, moving out of the corner and approaching them, “use my magic? It would be children's archery for me.”

“Itching to do a Wingardium Leviosa, are you, Robin Hood?” Tony asked.

“Okay, that’s just too many references in one sentence, Tony,” Bruce said.

Loki cleared his throat.

“Give it a shot,” Tony said. “Don’t break anything.”

Loki smiled. Natasha crossed her arms, her lips tightly pressed together. There was no wand and no incantation, Loki merely raised his hand and Tony’s devices rose into the air and set themselves into movement.

“Well, that’s Wingardium Leviosa if you ask me.” Nathan said. He took a deep breath. If he was a bit overwhelmed, Tony could understand. Nathan knew everything about the mission. In Theory. Seeing someone actually letting stuff float around was another story entirely.

They followed Loki and Tony’s floating workshop into the other ship. It was so amazing, Tony forgot all about Loki’s first grader magic. The technology was on a different level compared to Earth. Even compared to Tony’s. While this might have discouraged many scientists, it just made Tony feel more excited. There was a good chance he could significantly upgrade his Iron-Man suit on this journey.

“I figured you could fly it,” Thor said to Tony. “Or Bruce. Don’t let Loki touch the controls, he’s horrible.”

Loki scoffed

“One time, he steered and he needed to prove how good he was by doing a slalom around the trees. It made everyone puke.”

“You should have gone easy on the boar,” Loki said. “My piloting is perfectly fine.”

“Don’t believe a thing he says,” Thor replied. “Anyway, I need to get back to Asgard. But as soon as my business there is finished, I’ll catch up with you.”

Figuring out how to steer didn’t take Tony long. At some point Loki even stopped complaining and retreated into his chambers. What he was always doing there, Tony wondered. He seemed to need an awful lot of time to himself.

“How do you even know where to fly?” Bruce was watching Tony from the neighboring seat. He was chewing a piece of dried meat. Apparently the rations Thor had left them with, were mostly dried fruits, meat and various kinds of nuts. On the positive side, there was a lot of that food on the ship. Enough to survive a year in space, Tony thought. And water, it turned out, that was one of those things Loki could conjure up, even if he did so grudgingly.

“They have a kind of navigation system in here,” Tony said. “It feels advanced and retro at the same time though. Applies to everything from Asgard I’ve seen so far including Thor and Loki.”

“I know what you mean,” Bruce scratched his ear. “Hey, what’s this giant circle on the screen?”

Tony bent forward and inspected it. “I don’t really know, but the system says we’re gonna encounter it...wait, the navigation doesn’t continue behind it, does that mean-”

“- a portal?” Bruce finished. “A wormhole? We are supposed to go through this thing?”

Tony pulled the brakes and addressed Jarvis. “Get me Loki here.”

“I’m afraid he is asleep, Sir.” Jarvis announced after a moment.

“What? Oh...well, wake him up then.”

“I have already tried that, Sir. He is not responding.”

Three minutes later Loki stomped into the cockpit, looking pissed and holding a knife.

Bruce quickly drew his feet up and held his hands before his body in defense. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, where the hell did you get that?!”

“The question to be asked is why this particular knife has been held into my face by one of your toys, Stark,” Loki said.

“Wait, that’s what you meant by ‘The Chopper’?” Bruce asked. “Why is that even defined in Jarvis database?”

“I’m prepared for anything,” Tony shrugged. “Anyway, you were a case of sleeping beauty and I thought a little life threatening danger would wake you up, since the kiss didn’t work, so…”

“What? Who-” Loki asked. He sounded a little taken aback, but also curious.

Tony had to stifle a laugh at his expression. “Obviously me, I am the bold one here.”

“God, Tony, how can you even joke about this?” The corners of Bruce’s mouth were distorted in distaste. Loki smirked.

“Brucie, you’re ruining all the fun!” Tony said, insinuating a pout. “Anyhow, we’ve come across a portal, black hole or something of the sort and I think the navigator wants us to go through.”

“So, why don’t you?” Loki asked. The worried look on Bruce’s face told him everything he needed to know. He snorted in amusement and walked up to Tony. He bent over the interface, released the brakes and steered the ship towards the portal. They could see it now. It was a black hole in the middle with something that looked like purple and white liquid clouds swirling around it. It looked like the last thing you’d want to maneuver a spacecraft into.

Loki did without hesitation. Upon entering the portal, the ship was dipped into a pitch black darkness. Tony felt a slight pressure on his ears, but apart from that nothing too drastic happened. It came to his mind that Loki still had the knife from earlier. It would be a piece of cake to stab them both here in the darkness. A chill ran down his spine. He forced himself to calm down. If Loki wanted to take them out, he would have by now.

Suddenly Tony heard footsteps approaching. They sounded like they were coming from the stairs behind the cockpit and they were closing in quick. Someone was running.

Towards them. Tony heard a thumping sound and a strange yelp. Then the ships shuddered, light flooded the windows and a voice announced from the speakers. “The spacecraft has now switched to autopilot.”

“Will you let me go, you lunatic?”

Tony squinted his eyes open. Loki had been tackled to the ground and Nathan was now sitting on his back, holding him down. He had a gun in his right hand, firmly pressing it to Loki’s skull.

“Are you alright?” Nathan asked, inspecting Tony.

“I think, we’re having a misunderstanding.” Tony said.

“He has a knife.”

“Yeah, that’s my fault.”

Nathan cocked the gun. “And it got dark suddenly.”

“We’ve flown through a portal,” Tony said. “Look, no one was in danger. But I appreciate the...ground combat thingy.”

Slowly Nathan let go of Loki and stood up. “I’m sorry. The situation appeared pretty unmistakable.”

Tony watched Loki pick himself up from the floor, scowling. “Yeah, I can comprehend that,” he said. And besides, it was fun to watch Loki getting thrown to the ground.

“What is that there?” Bruce asked. Tony followed the direction he pointed at with his finger. There was a dark planet hovering in the distance, surrounded by thick white fog.

Natasha walked into the cockpit. “It doesn’t look too friendly.” She cast Loki a suspicious look.

He smiled. “Do you not trust me?”

“You have to ask?”

“You’re right,” Loki said. “Ehinheim is quite inhospitable. They have their reasons for that, though. “

“But why are we starting here of all places?” Tony asked.

“These people are very likely to be turned over to Thanos side,” Loki said. “Maybe they already have. In that case we might find some helpful hints here. I suggest you let me navigate; we better get there undetected.”

“Wait, what happens if they see us?” Bruce asked. “We won’t get confined, will we?”

“Not likely,” Loki replied. He slowed the ship as they drifted through the fog and closed his eyes in concentration.

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked, making no effort to lower her voice.

Loki didn’t answer. A spooky silence settled around them. Tony leaned forward and squinted his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything.

Slowly the fog started to vanish again and gave sight to a planet that was less dark than Tony had anticipated. True, Ehinheim didn’t have a sun or a moon to shine down on it, but the planet itself was glowing in the most amazing colors itself. A turquoise blue light lit up the ground and the material from which the buildings were made and the plants came in the broadest variety of colors. The whole thing reminded Tony of an oldies techno music video, with the exception that the colors here were a little easier on the eyes.

It was snowing heavily but the surface of the planet apparently was so warm, the snowflakes melted immediately upon touch.

“That's amazing,” Nathan said. “I mean...a bit creepy, but amazing.”

Loki shushed him, touching his finger to his lips. They landed on a cliff, surrounded by trees, glowing in purple and dark red. There was thick fog underneath the cliff and Tony wondered if there was water there, but it was impossible to tell. The air was freezing and heavier here, which made it harder to breathe. Tony had to inhale through his mouth because he couldn’t get enough air.

He noticed that what he had taken for snow at first didn’t turn into liquid upon touching his skin. It just left a warm pleasant tingle and was, if anything, the opposite to a shower of cold rain on a hot summer day. He held out his hand, amazed; never in his life had he felt a sensation like that.

This place was not as creepy as it was charming in its own way. It was like a forest out of some fairytale, a dark one, granted, but a fairytale nonetheless. Something Loki had said came to Tony’s mind at that. He turned around. “Why did you say that the people here have their reasons for being inhospitable?”

Loki considered him a moment before answering. “Apart from being exceptionally off-putting to look at, they have no great record of friendly intruders here. Many races, the Asgardians included, have tried to raid this planet for the most precious resources it can provide. “

Bruce pulled his jacket tighter around himself. “Why exactly did you find it a good idea to come here? Of all Asgardians, they will recognize you; you are one of the popular ones.”

“Don’t touch the plants,” Loki told Nathan, who had his hand stretched out towards a yellow glowing leaf. “Some of them might kill you, just like that.”

Nathan quickly withdrew his hand. He scowled at Loki. “Now, what are we going to do here, since we’re clearly unwelcome.”

“Oh, we are not unwelcome by everyone,” Loki said.

“Oh please.” Natasha cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you have made friends here.”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” Loki replied. “The most unusual type of friends often turn out to be those of great use.”

“Hey, that’s the exact same way I talk about my machines,” Tony said.

Loki didn’t react to the comment. “We will have to walk the last part of the way. Try to be as silent as you possibly can.” He gave Tony a particular long look as he said that.

Tony just cracked a short fake grin in reply.

“Are you not taking your suit with you?” Natasha asked.

“Nope.” Tony held up his wrist to show her the armband attached to it. “I’ll just call it when I need it.”

They started walking through the woods, avoiding the plants that hung into the pathway. Tony noticed that the ground was kind of soft, like a leather sofa. In the beginning it was fun walking there, but it soon became tiring. Just as he was about to complain, Loki stopped. “This ahead is the house of some of my old acquaintances, I advise you to speak as less as you find possible, preferably not at all. They are easily offended.”

Tony said nothing. As engaging as this place was, he wanted to leave as soon as possible. He decided to let Loki have his way here and followed him towards an array of hills, glowing in yellow. An old window had been used as a door, with a striped curtain behind it to shield the inhabitants from sight.

“Uhm, someone lives here?” Bruce asked. There was no light behind the windows and besides a hoarse croaking from somewhere in the distance, no sound could be heard.

“The Ehin values silence,” Loki said, just as something squealed behind them and a white creature broke out of a bush. A small ball of yellow roots rolled towards Tony's feet and bumped his toes.

Then another one of the strange beings exited the bush. They were shaped like lizards, only longer and more snakelike. Red gum like antlers sat on their heads and their hands were fully developed, similar to a humans, with six long fingers. Their big black bead like eyes stared at them. Nathan had touched his hands to his mouth and seemed to have trouble breathing calmly. Tony was too stunned to feel scared.

Loki knelt down and drew his forefinger over the creatures antlers. It made a purring sound but it’s eyes remained alertly fixed on the five of them.

“Now, what are you doing?” Natasha asked, impatiently.

A cough was heard behind them. Tony turned around. There stood another one of those creatures, at least twice as big in size, upright on it’s kangaroo like legs, arms crossed. The skin around it’s eyes was wrinkled, which gave the impression of mistrust or irritation. It gave a few hoarse croaking sounds and eyed them expectantly. Loki stood up and turned around. The wrinkles on the creature's face disappeared, it stepped forward clasped Loki's hands and croaked some more.

Tony leaned forward towards them. “Hey, sorry, are you talking there or what?”

“My bad,” Loki said. “Of course you can not understand a word. If you allow me to use my magic here..”

“Just do it,” Nathan demanded. He had his arms crossed. Unbothered by his tone of voice, Loki smiled, made a swift snapping gesture with his fingers and turned his attention back towards the being in front of him. “It has been long since our last encounter. As I see you have extended your family.”

The creature, apparently a She, nodded. “Yes. There, why don’t you let yourself in? You lot are salient, standing there like this.”

She stepped aside with a slight bounce and they entered the hill house. It was illuminated by the yellow light the walls shone in and Tony was surprised to spot many familiar items inside. There was an old carpet, a coffee machine from the 70’s, several teacups, wooden chairs, a water boiler and a red couch.

Another Ehin sat on the couch and looked at them upon entering.

“You are earthlings, yes?” the woman asked, tinkering around with the water boiler. “We get most of our stuff from you. Throwing a lot away, are you? Herod comes around every twenty years or so and drops off tons of stuff. Speaking of which, he’s a bit late this time around…”

“He probably needed a bigger ship,” Tony said.

“How so?” the woman asked.

“We throw even more stuff away now.” Tony said.

“I see, I see,” she replied. “There, Loki, why do you not introduce us?”

Loki stepped forward, gave the man on the sofa an acknowledging nod and placed a hand firmly on Tony’s shoulder. He felt himself stiffen against his will.  He didn’t like Loki invading his personal space.

“This is Anthony Stark,” Loki spoke. “I’m accompanying him on a mission, he is in desperate need of my help and these”-  he pointed towards the others, standing behind him and Tony - “...are his friends. Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Nathan Hill. This lovely woman here,” he pointed in her direction. “is Eyrene and here we have her husband Ohrun.”

“Oh don’t you lie to me you charmer,” Eyrene said, touching her cheek with her palm. “Everyone knows we look ghastly to you Asgardians.”

“Oh, not to me, you don’t.”

“Stop it,” she said, but her voice had clearly pitched up. Tony exchanged a confused look with Natasha and Bruce.

“Well,” she continued. “If you want my opinion, you all look appalling. You’re getting way too much light out there.”

“Yeah, we’d stay for a nice tan, but we’re kinda in a hurry.” Tony said. Loki gave him a disapproving look. “Unfortunately Anthony is right. We are actually here to investigate upon a few incidents of people vanishing lately.”

The woman reminded Tony of an olm and he  found the term “people” unfitting somehow, but what else would you call her? Animal was probably offending, as was Lizard or Alien. Men was even more unfitting. Tony figured he could just call them the Ehin or something.

“...as is Johiren, he sleeps through all of this. You might want to go to the city.” Eyrene suggested.

“Yeeehs,” Ohrun grunted now, still sunken into his seat. “I hear there are quite a few missing from the silver family.”

“Excellent,” Loki said, pushing his fingers against his palm. “I wanted to visit your majesty all along.”

“Well, you better get going,” Eyrene said. “He’s doing his annual slumber four days from now and not even a stampede of Grootslang could wake him up for weeks.”

“In that case we require a disguise.” Loki said.

“Oh, I figured that is why you came here. You can’t run around looking like that.” She made the word “that” sound especially lengthy and disgusted.

“Those transfiguration wristbands we had last time would work just fine.”

Eyrene had already started rummaging through one of the various jalopies spread all over the cave. “It surely has been some time. Got about fourteen deliveries since then, I have no idea where I put them..”

Tony made a step towards Loki, so that he was standing close to him. “What are Grootslang?”

“Mixture of snake and elephant.”

Tony made a face. “Ehw, right. And what’s this silver family thing about?”

“A social status here is defined by the color of your residential area and your wardrobe.”

“Silver is high, I assume?”

“It’s the royal family.”

“What’s it with you aliens and their royal families? Has any of you ever heard of say,”Tony sniffed and pulled up the right corner of his mouth. “...uhm democracy?”

Loki ignored him and watched Eyrene search the boxes. Ohrun opened a book and started reading. The rest of them stood around, looking uncomfortable. Nathan shifted his weight from one to the other foot repeatedly.

“Ahhh, found it,” Eyrene pulled a small box out of a bigger box and held it towards Loki. “"Here, take them. We never use them anyway."

Loki took the box. "Thank you."

He retrieved a wristband from it and ran his index finger over the smooth material. Tony found it a little suspicious just how much interest he showed into a simple wristlet. Tony made an effort to cough. Real loud.

Loki turned around as if he'd heard nothing and handed out the bracelets to them. "If you wear those, it will be possible for me to distribute my magic from myself to you. I will use a simple disguise spell, so the folk of this planet will take you as one of their kind."

"How will we know you're not pulling any shit on us?" Natasha asked.

"Right," Nathan chimed in. "You bring us here, to this strange foreign planet where we have no control at all. I feel like we're completely at your mercy and I don't like it."

"He is a noble man," Eyrene said. "You can trust him."

No one said anything. Tony crossed his arms. The Loki Eyrene knew, must have been a different person from now. Or a great actor. And possibly both.

"How do you know?" Bruce asked. "What did he ever do that was so noble?"

"Have care how you speak," Ohrun gruntled, never taking his eyes off his newspaper. "He saved our lives once. And our home. We ought to be grateful. And you would be wise to respect our judgement. Not one creature in the universe is more mistrusting than the Ehin."

Tony figured that those two had no idea who Loki really was. Even before New York he had been a trickster, Thor had told him. Certainly no one you would call trustworthy. But they all remembered, what Loki had told them about the Ehin being easily offended. Everyone nodded and Ohrun turned his attention back to the paper.

"Now that we got this settled," Loki said. "Would you kindly put on those bracelets? Believe me when I say, you don't want to be recognized out there."

"Fine," Bruce grunted and stepped forward. He took a wristband from Loki and slid it around his arm. Tony did the same. The material was pleasant and soft around his wrist and he could feel something vibrating inside, as if it was alive.

"Fascinating isn't it?" Loki held up his arm. "You're getting an impression of the magic running through my veins."

"Stop showing off," Natasha said. "Just do whatever you have to do."

Loki sighed and patted the side of his pants. "Alright, I'll be turning you into coins and tuck you into my pocket."

"Oh no," Tony said. "I'm not getting into your pants."

Bruce massaged his forehead with his fingers. "Do you have to make it sound like that?"

Tony shrugged. "I'm not touching him, not even as a Silver dollar."

"Calm down," Natasha said. "He's not serious."

"No, but that was most entertaining," Loki said. "Don't worry. You won't have to do a thing. I will merely cast an illusion to hide your true appearance."

Eyrene chuckled. "He's a funny charmer isn't he?"

"I died inwardly." Tony replied.

-----------------------

They had to walk for several hours to get to the city. Tony grew a bit uneasy, just thinking about the time they could be wasting here. What would happen once they arrived at the silver palace? They would ask the king about his missing children and then what? Start a full investigation?

Tony shoved the thoughts aside for the time being and looked around. What Loki had referred to as a city, was nothing more than a larger field with many glowing hills on them, most of them glowing in purple or blue now.

In the middle of these hills was a big palace, that resembled a gothic church Tony had once seen in Germany. Trash was not the only thing these guys took from Earth, Tony thought.

"That's it." Loki said.

"It looks like a dome." Nathan said.

"So unlike everything else here." Bruce added.

Loki nodded. "The King is quite fond of your architecture. It's a stunning fact about a man who has no taste whatsoever otherwise."

A few Ehins moved by next to them, entering a purple hill.

"It's really quiet here." Natasha said.

"Its nighttime," Loki stated.

"So what do we do?" Bruce asked. "Do we just walk into the palace? Can we do that?"

"Why don't you let me handle that?" Loki said, smiling. "Just wait here."

"Oh no, that stinks," Nathan said. "We're supposed to let you go alone?"

"Unless you want to be turned into coins."

Natasha pulled her shoe out of a slimy plant she had stepped on and scrunched up her face in contempt. "Why don't we come along, hm?" she said, shaking her foot to get rid of a glibbery piece that had stuck to her shoe.

Loki huffed a short laugh. "The king doesn't really care about big groups stomping into his holy halls."

"Ah, that's great," Tony said. "It's just you and me then."

"What?"

"Come on, he can handle two people right?" Tony tilted his head and watched Loki in anticipation. As if the question actually surprised him, Loki raised his eyebrows. "Of course, that's a good idea, Stark."

Hm, Tony thought, now he changed his mind pretty quick about that. He had a feeling, that Loki had been up to something. He was far too eager to enter the palace alone, unseen by anyone.

Nathan grabbed Tony by the arm. "Are you sure you will be alright, Mr. Stark?"

Tony shot him a confident grin. "Sure. Send a rescue squad if we don't get back in an hour or so."

"Two," Loki said. "We should not rush things in there."

"And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Natasha asked. "Just stand here and wait?"

"You will stay disguised, as long as you wear the wristbands," Loki told her. "I'm sure you can think of something."

They left the others behind, walking up to the castle. A weird silence settled between them. In a normal everyday life situation, this was the point where you would start small talk, or in Tony’s case, where you would make some half witted jokes.

But Tony had no intention of doing either of these two things in Loki's company. He’d like to punch the guy or humiliate him in some kind of way. But he doubted that he could actually reach Loki's face with his fist, without his suit on, that was. And the latter would just seem childish.

Two guards flanked the portal in front of the castle. As soon as they saw Loki and Tony approaching they crossed their spears into an X shape. “Visitors are not welcome. The King is not receiving anyone in audiences at the moment.”

“Very well,” Loki said, bowing his head. “We will be on our way then.”

Tony froze, confused, but Loki just took him by the arm and led him away. “I anticipated something like this would happen.” he said, rounding a corner.

“But we’re just walking away now?” Tony asked.

“Of course not,” Loki said. “I just wanted to take a look at the portal to see if there was a keyhole there, which we could squeeze through.”

Now, Loki had either lost the few marbles, remaining in his head or he had a trick up his sleeve. “Well, it’s never crossed my mind before, a keyhole,” Tony said.” Would’ve come in handy in a few situations where I wanted to vanish quick and unseen, you get me? Yeah, but sounds worth a try, let's do it.”

“You have no idea what I was suggesting.” Loki stated dryly.

“I think you have no idea what I was just going at either.”

“I can shape-shift us into something that can fit through these keyholes easily, say, a fly.” Loki said, without further dwelling on the subject of various implications.

“A fly? Are you serious?”

“For a change.”

“Great.” Tony paused and scratched his head. “Fine, whatever. As long as we get through. And you make sure, that i’ll not be branded with a pair of fly-wings for all eternity or something.”

Loki looked almost amused at that. “I promise.”

“Okay then,” Tony said and closed his eyes. “Just do it, I don’t wanna see.”

Loki said no more and the next moment it felt as if all air was being pushed out of Tony's lungs. His insides were being compressed like old car wrecks. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised, that his vision hadn’t changed. He had expected compound eyes. Of course, everything around him was much bigger now. The little house hills were mountains now, with wide valleys in between.

“Don’t do anything,” Loki said. “I’ll make you follow me.”

When Tony looked ahead, he saw another fly buzzing in the air. He had never seen an insect this close up. It was beyond fascinating, the body resembled something robotic. A thing that had been  figured out and put together by an expert. A mechanic. Like him, maybe. Then something else came to him. “You can control my body?” Tony asked. “Could you do that all the time? Theoretically?” He tried to look down. This was so weird.

“No, I couldn’t,” Loki said. “Let’s move.”

Tony felt his body being dragged forward. At this point he didn’t mind it too much, because he had no idea how to maneuver around in this body. They needed to get through this keyhole unnoticed. Buzzing against the portal like a drunk could make one of the guards want to smash him. Tony didn’t want to provoke that.

They flew around the corner again, towards the guards. They were staring straight ahead, neither of them noticed two tiny flies passing by. They slipped through the keyhole unnoticed.

“Wow, that worked,” Tony said. “Great. Can you turn us back?”

“There’s one thing I’d like to check,” Loki replied. “Wait here.”

And with that Fly Loki vanished out of sight and left Tony glued to a random spot in the air. This couldn’t possibly be Loki attempting to bail. That would be too stupid.

Tony stared at the blank wall in front of him for what felt like five minutes until he felt his inner organs expand and before he knew what happened he was back to his human form. He fell to the carpeted floor with a low thump.

“Do you need a hand?” Loki stood before Tony’s outstretched feet and it was clear from his tone, that he had no intention, meeting his gracious offer.

Tony got back on his feet and flattened his shirt a little. “What did you do back there?”

“I merely checked if the King was alone in his hall. He is. We might as well enter.”

Tony replied nothing, as they started walking. Loki didn’t have to go alone to check on that. And the kings hall was only one corner and a small staircase away from them. There wasn’t as much time needed to retrieve the information Loki had gathered as had actually passed while he was gone.

The doors to the hall were open. The floor was a dark toned marble and inside the building reminded Tony even more of a cathedral. It had a painted circular arch as a ceiling, with corinthian columns supporting it and high painted windows, only decoration, as you couldn’t see the outside through them. They were like paintings, sculpted from the colorfully glowing Earth on the planet. Most of the paintings were abstract strokes of color, but there were also some portraits of the Ehin.

At the end of the hall was a great altar, but with a throne where the clergymen usually stood. On that throne sat the biggest and repugnant Ehin Tony had seen so far. It’s skin was already saggy from age and it had an enormous potbelly. He was surrounded by various kinds of food, so where the paunch came from was readily identifiable.

He stared at them, all the way while they stepped in and walked up to the throne. Then he stood up, shoving his belly to the front first, then stepping onto the marble with one leg. The ground vibrated while he stared down at them. When he spoke, the creature's voice sounded like he had a frog stuck down his throat and was constantly trying to throw it up. “Why, I have been looking forward to meeting you again, Odinson.”

The tone implied the opposite. Loki closed his eyes for a moment, smiling, but sucking in his lip, as if he was ashamed. “Well,” he said. “The feeling is quite mutual.”

“Uhuhuhu,” the Ehin gargled. “Yes, I thought so.” His voice had a dangerous edge now. Tony suppressed the urge to take a step back. Loki seemed to have noticed too. “I suggest,” he said, his voice calm and soothing. “...rather than condemning me for my previous wrongdoings, you consider of what use I was to you and of what use I can be in the future.”

When the Ehin narrowed his eyes, his skin threw thick creases around them. “Tell me then. And why don’t you start by introducing me to the Earthling you have brought here? Is he meant to be a gift?”

“He is just a companion,” Loki said. “You needn’t worry about him. You have other things to be concerned about. I hear you are missing a few of your children.”

“You are more informed, than you should be,” The Ehin bent forward, his neck stretching out like chewing gum, when he brought his face up to Lokis. “Lau-fey-son.”

After he had successfully suppressed his gagging reflex, at the sight of the King's neck, Tony chose to focus his attention on Loki and Loki only. He noticed Loki's face twitching for a split second, drawing all his features together, when the Ehin called him “Laufeyson”. But he recovered quickly and placed a smile on his lips.

Well, he's adopted , Tony thought, that “Laufey” must be his real father then.

“Tell me, how is Laufey faring?” the King mocked. His eyes were slits and his saggy face seemed contorted into a grin.

“He is indisposed I would say,” Loki replied. “As Laufey is dead and  I have slain him.”

Tony felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Loki had killed his own father? Granted, he maybe hadn’t really known him, but. he had still been a relative by blood. Did this Laufey have to die, just for being Lokis true father?

The king on the other side, seemed delighted. He boomed a laugh. Thick greenish spit ran out of the corners of his mouth when he did. “A bit reluctant to accept your heritage are you?”

“Now, I value your shrink qualities,” Loki said. “But just this time I will have to decline laying down on your couch. “

The king narrowed his eyes again. “What do you want?”

Loki lowered his head and glared up at him. “I wanted to see where your loyalties lie.”

Suddenly the Ehin opened his eyes wide until his pupils were only small white dots inside. “The universe is changing,” he whispered. “Being thrown into disbalance. By the one who hides.”

He closed his eyes and leaned back. “The Asgardians have grown into a honorable race of mostly respectful people. They leave us in peace here. We intend to keep it that way.”

“I see.” Loki said. He waited. A moment passed.

“Do you expect me to tell you where he is?” the King asked. He scooped a handful of slimy berries out of a bowl and shoved them into his mouth. “Because I don’t know.”

Loki drew his eyebrows together and smirked. “You always know.”

“My eyes have grown weary. As has my body and my mind. He has moved and is now out of my sight.”

“Well, where was he the last time you saw him?” Loki asked. Tony sensed, that he was growing impatient. His voice had a slight edge to it now.

The Ehin gave a throaty chuckle. “Why would I tell you that, Laufeyson?”

Now Loki dropped the smile. When he spoke again his tone was almost threatening. “Did I or did I not have your back all these years? Defended you against those who wanted your demise and raid this planet of all it’s value? Dear friend,” he said with a glowering undertone. “what I expect of you is merely a small recompense. I am a man of kindness, you know that, but I will not allow myself to be exploited so shamelessly.”

The king remained silent for a moment. Then he scrunched up his nostrils and grumbled. “Fine. But when I give you this information, I don’t want to see you on my planet for the next two hundred years. Do you understand me, La-”

“Don’t dare speak that name again,” Loki interrupted. “I understand.”

“Very well,” the Ehin turned away and picked up another load of berries. “Alfheim. The South. Near the old town. The Mountain Mansion. He was searching for something there.”

Loki indicated a bow, even though the Ehin was no longer paying them any attention. “Thank you very much for the courtesy, your majesty.” he said. He touched his hand to the back of Tony's right shoulder. “Let’s go..”

They left the palace. The guards pretended not to notice them, when they passed through the portal. Tony turned his head, to look at them.

“Ehin can communicate through vibrations in the Earth,” Loki said, upon seeing Tony's confused expression. “They have been informed.”

“What about the missing children?” Tony asked.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with Thanos, so they don’t concern us any longer.” Loki said.

“A man of kindness, aren’t you?” Tony sighed.

“Even if I was, we don’t have the time. For all I know, this bloated salamander ate them himself.”

Tony crossed his arms behind his head. “He’s really got you riled up. Hey, what’s your real name anyway? Like, which one do you prefer? Odinson or Laufeyson, cause I gotta know-”

“Shut up.” Loki spat.

“And he knew all about the adoption, hey I think you’re a subject for the intergalactic tittle-tattle! Do you think there are  magazines or something, going like: “It’s not all gold that shines!” Tony threw up his hands in exasperation “-Drama in the asgardian royal family! And how Loki Odinson really became a member of the-”

Loki clapped his hand over Tony's mouth. “For real. Shut your mouth.” he whispered. “Something is-”

“Ah finally, I thought we’d have to go in there!” Bruce, Natasha and Nathan emerged from behind a purple hill. Tony shoved Lokis hand away. He was about to make a sarcastic remark about the whole fly-incident, when he noticed the Ehin sneaking up behind Nathan. He carried something that looked like a weapon, a gun maybe.

He wanted to shout, to warn them, but then something heavy came crashing down on his head and after a few seconds of excruciating pain, his world went black and he felt himself falling.