Part 3 - Chp 6
They land, somewhat unceremoniously, in the abandoned SHIELD base. Tony doesn’t land on anyone, which he’s going to count as a victory considering how shaken Loki still is and all the others who had been at the tower still picking themselves up off the floor. A quick headcount reveals there’s only a few of them: him, Steve, Thor, Bruce.
“Where are the others?” Tony asks Loki. He gets a blank look, realizes that the jittery nervous isn’t just Tony over the Tower and Jarvis both going down; Loki’s mentally scattered, flung out as wide as he can to turn over and plot and try to be not frightened. “Hey,” Tony says, putting his hands on Loki’s face. Loki jerks back, eyes focusing on Tony and taking a few long seconds to process that it’s Tony. “Where are the others?”
“These were all in your Tower.” Loki looks torn between telling Tony to unhand him and pulling him closer, so Tony makes up his mind for him and lets go, turning around to survey the others.
They… don’t exactly look pleased. Steve in particular has his patriotic jaw clench going.
Tony decides to ignore it in favour of assessing what they don’t have still.
“Where’s the Tesseract?” he asks Loki.
Loki makes a noise. It’s not a good noise. Tony does not like the noise one bit, or how Loki’s face twists when he makes it.
(Loki is actually frightened--or as close as he ever gets; it makes Tony nauseous.)
“He knows,” Loki says, very softly, so soft Tony isn’t entirely sure that he said it outloud, that it isn’t soul level knowledge, except for Thor, who either is a hell of a lip reader or did hear Loki--Thor who immediately asks, “Who knows?”
“Thanos,” Tony says, mouth dry. “Shit, we need to get to Jane!”
***
Tony hasn’t actually seen Thanos, but the impression he’s gotten from Loki’s hunger and excessive caution combined with the Tesseract viewing him on the same level as a planet eater (no, really) has made it pretty clear that if they’re going to do this, they did not want to get noticed.
At least not until they had the upper hand.
Tony shelves finding out how Thanos realized for later, makes getting to Jane before she tests out the bridge maker the priority--even above the everyone else’s narrowed eyed looks about him clearly knowing what Loki’s been up to.
“Is he here?” Tony asks Loki.
“No, but he will be soon.”
“Great. Peachy.” He closes his eyes the few moments while he gets zipped around, then desert heat knocks him in the face and he takes off at a run to catch up to Jane.
“Jane!”
Jane blinks, notices Loki, and tenses.
“Jane, look, I don’t have a ton of time to explain, but no bridge test today and we kind of need you to come with us.”
“Tony, I’m pretty sure that’s Loki, and last I checked he was not a good guy.”
“He’s--fuck it, he’s complicated, the important thing is that we have something a lot worse than him on the way and if you open the Einstein-Rosen bridge it’s pretty likely that the bigger, nastier thing would hitch a ride and it doesn’t have a soulmate that’s made it clear we aren’t wrecking Earth.”
“Just invading it.”
“It’s a ploy. Loki is--was working with him on a temporary basis to double cross--look it’s complicated, and I’m going to have to explain it to Steve when we get back. Can we please just get your equipment and you to not here?” Tony gives her his best puppy eyes.
“I promise that I will not harm you,” Loki adds, and he doesn’t even use his menacing voice for it, bonus.
“I have a taser,” Jane informs him. “Alright. But if we don’t go straight to the others—”
“We will.”
***
They do. Tony counts it a sign of Loki’s returning control as it’s not nearly so rough a landing this time. He also counts himself lucky that they are not at the Tower because otherwise he’d probably be getting locked somewhere nevermind that he could pretty easily get out again what with building the damn thing.
“You, over there,” Tony says, pointing to an empty space opposite where Bruce, Steve, and Thor have gathered and were talking before they got back. Loki shoots him a look, but he goes--and then smirks a little as Tony gets himself leaned against the desk he’d pointed at so that he’s between Loki and the others. It’s not a nice grin, but fuck it, Tony’s played diplomacy under worse circumstances before.
Not that he can remember any right now.
“I can totally explain,” Tony says right as Steve opens his mouth. “Just let me explain.”
He hopes Banner just is green from the sudden trip and not for other reasons, this space is way too small for that.
“I would hope so,” Steve says, crossing his arms and leveling Tony with a look. Another life, Tony would be drowning under guilt, but as it is he has to resist rolling his eyes.
“When I did that drowning thing the other week, it did something to Loki--namely help him because he was definitely under some serious heavy duty mind control shit. The force was already on its way to Earth then, he was just sort of some extra baggage they came across.” Tony keeps talking before Thor can open his mouth and ruin anything. “Vision quest theoretical nonsense, you can ask Bruce for the details, because it worked even if I only remember bits and pieces. Unfortunately, this meant Loki’s mind-control person isn’t exactly happy. Loki found me, we formed a plan to get him out of danger without raising suspicion and so we could take out the threat if it showed up on Earth.”
“And how’s that working out for you?” Barton asks drily.
Tony grimaces.
“You seriously expect me to believe all that?” Steve asks.
“Hey, you were the ones who voted me off the team before I could tell you.”
That’s not winning him any awards, but he also doesn’t care. It’s got enough of the truth in it that it’ll hold up, just enough that Thor’s apparently decided to keep his opinions to himself, just closed his mouth and sat back, watching Tony with a frankly uncomfortable scrutiny.
“You didn’t tell them?” Loki says from behind him, acidic and bewildered.
Tony whirls around, hands up.
“Hey, they didn’t want my help.”
Loki is outright glaring.
“What use is a plan if you don’t keep to your half, Stark?”
“Ouch, you hurt me. Look--Loki, wait—”
Nope, there he goes. Tony gets his face composed before he turns around, because he was hoping Loki would help play along but that was perfect.
“Uh, so,” he says, turning around and rubbing the back of his head, “I guess we’re even?”
Jane is the only one who looks at all sympathetic, but he might be imagining that.
***
Jane is sympathetic. Kind of. And he’s also temporarily banished from planning while the other three figuring out what they want to do next, with the occasional flat interjection from Loki, who is giving all appearances of being pissed with him.
He helps her resetup her equipment, since they’re going to end up needing it anyway, and lets himself get lost in the rhythm of assembly instead of trying to eavesdrop on the others.
“That’s really tough luck,” Jane says.
“Hmm?”
“That whole god thing for a soulmate. And one like Loki, too.”
Tony frowns at her.
“Are you speculating, you have one, or…?”
Jane flushes.
“I just read. Sometimes.”
Tony grins, but he doesn’t let himself laugh at her.
“Jane Foster, into trashy stereotypical soulmate stories are you?”
“Sometimes. Like you never looked before you met him.”
“Maybe once or twice. Don’t worry, kiddo, you’ll find yours.”
Jane snorts.
“I have more important things to do, they’ll need to find me.”
“That’s the spirit,” Tony says. “Science before souls.”
Jane frowns.
“Well, not quite like that,” Tony agrees, and then they both start laughing--a little hysterical, sure, but it’s tense and they need drinks and they’re rebuilding a machine that should basically make a portal between impossibly far distances in an abandoned SHIELD basement while an impossibly powerful Titan bears down on Earth.
They’re totally allowed, despite any looks to the contrary.