Part 3 - Chp 2
They do not end up with Loki’s space pals, despite what Tony thought would happen.
No, they’re definitely still on Earth. They’re in some sort of abandoned underground facility--former SHIELD, and the recognition that isn’t his makes him realize Loki knows this place. He’ll need to look himself, of course, but he suspects that this is where Loki was kept before.
“Home sweet home?” Tony asks.
“No one will look here,” Loki says dismissively, fury and attention both already turned away from Tony. “You should have come. I don’t know why you didn’t.”
“Thor thought it seemed a little convenient that you were that fucked up but could still manage to send a projection.” Tony pokes at a powered off terminal, but this place is dead and dust-covered and utterly dull. “So what did I ruin for you?”
“I was going to eat,” Loki says. It’s almost sullen. “Now the deal I had bartered to pull it off lies in tatters and I am left with an entity waiting on the moment it can destroy me, I’m sure.” He’s talking to a familiar cube on one of the counters.
“The Tesseract is sentient?”
Loki deigns to give him a look that says exactly how idiotic Tony is. Tony just smiles back at him.
“Can I get some clothes?”
Loki rolls his eyes, snaps his fingers, and turns his attention back to the Tesseract. Tony examines what he’s in--suit, tie, slacks, all of it high-quality and fit for a prince. Of course; he should have realized.
“I had struck a deal with it. You managed to rather effectively ruin that by unchaining me. That part of me.” Loki scowls. “And of all the times you decided to help.”
“I didn’t know,” Tony says. “I was busy being dead.”
That gets Loki’s full attention.
“Who?” Loki demands, stalking up to Tony, eyes feral and shadow twisting beneath his feet. “Who would dare—”
“They’re taken care of,” Tony says. “And I’m back, obviously.”
Loki settles back on his heels even as his shadow keeps churning beneath his feet. His eyes narrow, face going thoughtful, considering.
“So, bring me up to speed. What’s up with the alien force? Who were you going to eat?” Tony raises an eyebrow. “You do want me to help, right?”
“Yes.” Loki shakes his head. “Yes, that is why I brought you here.”
***
“So let me get this straight,” Tony says, rubbing his forehead. “In exchange for getting to control you sort of for a period of relative time, the Tesseract was going to help cripple Thanos so you could eat him. In the god sense of the word. Meanwhile, you cut a deal with Thanos that you’d help him get to Midgard, which is basically Grand Central for the other realms, so that he could kill everything as some fucked up romantic gesture to Death, the goddess concept. Is that right? And he agreed even though he knows you’re planning to stab him in the back because you and the Tesseract were clearly on same body basis? Did I get all that?”
“Yes.”
“Were you planning on stopping Thanos before or after he killed everyone else and absorbed all that energy?”
“Before.”
Tony crosses his arms.
“Probably,” Loki allows with a sniff.
“That’s why you tried to trick me into coming after you right away. Either way, Midgard is going to get fucked sideways and you wanted me off world.”
“That is correct.”
The worst thing is Tony can follow Loki’s reasoning. Tony’s half ready to go mad with the hunger gnawing at him, and he’s pretty sure it’s only an echo of what Loki feels. Though he didn’t see Thanos, he has a good idea that Loki is small fish in a big pond if he needed outside help to be taken seriously. Part of him, the part Tony has classified as not-him (a piece of Loki that filled the space vacated when Loki ate him to bring him back), nearly slavers at the mere thought of consuming Thanos.
Loki wanted to get Tony out of the crossfire, the only sentiment he allowed into his planning; he’s never given a fuck about the rest of the human race. Tony’s known that since he first met him.
“Does Thanos know you ditched yet?” Tony asks.
Loki shakes his head.
“We’re not letting Earth get blown to hell,” Tony says. “That’s final.” Loki looks put out, but Tony plows on before Loki can protest or interrupt. “We figure out a way not to destroy the planet, get you a meal, and, I don’t know, ride off into the sunset like big damn heroes.”
“Why do you care?”
“I happen to like Earth, thanks.” Tony grimaces at the look of disbelief Loki gives him. “Okay, fine. It’s where I kick my feet up, and I don’t particularly want to find another planet to do that on. It’s convenient.”
“Your societies are utterly broken and unable to take care of themselves. There are a hundred thousand better places I could take you, if you would let me.”
“I’m going to fix Earth,” Tony says stubbornly, even if the idea of all those other alien planets sounds tempting. “Even if I end up needing to tear it all down. That means you and your plans can’t ruin it before I can try it my way.”
“Very well,” Loki sighs. “How, then, shall we proceed?”
“How long do you have before you need to head back?”
Loki waves a hand, entirely unhelpful as a unit of time, but Tony gets what he means instinctively. He’s asking the wrong question; Loki doesn’t understand and is answering with what he thinks he’s being asked: eh. Time is incredibly bendy for Loki, just like space--with the right words, neither make any difference to him.
“Have you tried renegotiating with the Tesseract?”
“It would subsume me,” Loki says flatly. “It is rather unbending on reneged deals.”
“Huh. But would it do that to me?”
Loki’s eyes narrow. Tony grins back at him with his best showman’s smile.