Precious Metals

From her vantage point, Jena decided Loki didn't look good. She sat settled in the back seat of Stark's outrageous limo, a literal fur draped across her lap, toes tucked under Tony's thigh. Loki stood next to Thor, wearing a thick muzzle over his mouth (and that alone gave her all sorts of mixed emotions). Where Thor looked at home in the sunlight of the early afternoon, Loki stood pale and shaking. How was he even still standing? Every now and again his shaking would become so pronounced it was like a full-body shudder. He looked positively cowed, and scared, and Jena felt her stomach twist. 

"Stark, he looks really bad."

"He is bad, dear." Stark muttered behind his coffee cup, eyes glued to his tablet. Heaven only knew what the fluctuating graphs and bars even meant. "We know because he's a villain." He wiggled his pinky at her before he took a loud slurp. 

"I know, but..." She glared at the entire group of SHIELD agents and Thor through her binoculars, chewing on her lip. "Something about this doesn't feel right. Tell me again why the muzzle is necessary?"

"Thor says Loki has the ability to make a lie sound like the truth and sway anyone to his side with his luminous blue eyes. Fury thinks its some voice-activated mind control, so Reindeer Games gets a mouth trap." Stark swiped at the screen, replacing the first set of graphs with another. "Why's he running a fever?" he mumbled to himself.

Jena shifted on the seat, focusing the binoculars on the Asguardian's face. Sweat beaded across his forehead and curled the ends of his hair. Jena realized he truly was shivering. "Maybe he's sick?" She wiggled her toes. Stark flexed his thigh, pressing the tops of her feet into the seat and wrapped a hand around her ankle. "And his eyes are green."

Stark stilled, the way he did when something in her history pissed him off but he was trying to hide it for her benefit. "J-berry, what color is the sky?" 

Jen rolled her eyes at his 'dad' voice. "The sky is blue. I know my colors and I'm looking right at him." Binoculars down, meet the Stark eyes. Yup, just as stormy as she thought they would be, but she wasn't backing down. "His eyes are green."

Stark dropped his tablet and swiped her binoculars, and a moment later he went still. Jena knew he'd need a minute or six to process his new data. She could practically see his brain doing all sorts of genius-billionaire somersaults between his ears. If Loki had had blue eyes when he had the scepter and now suddenly had green eyes, then maybe Loki wasn't completely in charge. She nearly asked Tony what color the alien's eyes were when they defeated him but he beat her to it. Stark's fingers flickered across the screen of his tablet again before a video showed up. Jena leaned against him in interest. She hadn't seen this one. 

She had a quick view of Loki, laid out in a crater on the penthouse floor (she recognized the bar from a trip up there two days ago), before the video began to play. When Loki had sat up, with great effort and visibly in pain, Stark zoomed in. There were cracks and rips in his armor, and Loki blinked slow and wide. The Avengers came to stand over him, and Loki tilted his face up. Tony tensed, stopping the video to zoom almost impossible close to the face onscreen. He pulled the tablet close to his face a second later, squinting. "They're fucking green."

Jena was not above a well-placed 'I told you so', but now wasn't the time. "When was the last time they were blue?"
Stark tapped away at the little screen too fast for her to keep up, but soon there was another little video playing. Loki silently shouted up at Hulk - and now Jen completely understood the name choice - and she saw it. Right as Tony hit pause, Loki's hair flopped over his face and the bright blue of his irises glowed with menace. That...is definitely not the same person standing outside. 

Stark sat back, drumming the fingers of one hand on her shin, his brows furrowed. The tablet lay face up on his lap, creepy blue eyes staring up at them. "I don't think," he started slowly, "that we caught the right villain, J-bear."

"What?" That was mindboggling. Loki had wrecked havoc on the city, thousands dead. Sure, it definitely looked like it may not have been his fault, but did that really mean there was someone out there, controlling him? "Why can't the glowy rock stick have turned him into a space zombie? Why do you think there's someone else out there?" 

"Because he's terrified, not confused." He swiped at the screen again and brought up the first set of graphs he'd been studying earlier. "Elevated heart rate, a bunch of familiar stress hormones and a couple others I can't identify but that seem to have the same effect. He's sporting injuries that don't fit the timeline and if I didn't know any better I'd say he's been tortured." He pulled a the packet of dates out of his inner coat pocket and set it on her lap, fingers returning to curl around her ankle. "One plus one equals two, but these facts add up to a seven. That leaf shaking in the wind outside is not the madman who threw me out a window." He tossed the binoculars onto her lap and leaned forward. "You stay put." He pointed to the fruit in her lap. "And eat those."

She ignored him. "What are you going to do?" 

Stark crawled over to the rear doors. "Same thing I always do," his voice seemed to fill the space in the long limo. "Give 'em the ol' razzle dazzle."

Jena felt the anxiety crawl up the back of her throat. "Be careful, alright?"

Stark snorted as he stepped onto the pavement outside. "I'll duck."

~**~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~

He was going to be in sooo much trouble. 

Which, to be clear, Tony was fine with. He never had a problem getting in trouble. Having to deal with the trouble he got himself into was a different story. 

Thor still had Loki by the arm as he walked up, the barest furrow of impatience stirring across his blond eyebrows. 
"Ah, Friend Stark. Director Fury has assured me that you would be able to initiate the Tessaract to return Loki and I to Asgard."

Tony smirked the smirk that shut down the craftiest board members.  "Sure, Point Break, I can do that. but I'm not gonna."

In the resulting confusion - Bruce's "Stark!" sounded a good ten decibels lower than it should have - Tony tapped out the release code for Loki's muzzle on his phone. With a heavy-sounding 'snck', the muzzle fell to the ground with a clank that did nothing to drown out the sound of every agent present taking aim at his head.  

Just like that one time in Vegas. 

To his credit, Loki hadn't moved. In fact, the man, if he could be called that, looked more shocked than those around them. Tony carefully ignored the way Thor's hammer sung dangerously close to his jaw and kept his eyes on Loki. Moving would be a very bad idea right now. So he won't do that. Easy, right?

In the near silence, a car door swung open, and Tony felt his heart seize. 

"Stark!"

The panic. Oh the panic that gripped him right then -  "Jenavieve Pandora Stark you get back in that limo right this instant!"

"Don't shoot him! Don't shoot him, please don't shoot don'tshootson'tshoot - "

"Dammit, Jena - "

"You're in way over your head, Stark - " Okay, that was Fury, about to start the threats - 

"Consider well you actions, Man of Iron - " Thor. Duh. Next.

"Tony, what are you doing!" Captain Annoying, check. Where was Jena - 

"Don't make any sudden moves, Stark, or I will shoot you." Barton being a good bro with a warning, great but - where is she whereisshe he never should have brought her along if SHIELD took her from him he'd burn them to the ground - 

"Jena?"

"I'm okay." 

Tony let his eyes slip closed and forced himself to keep breathing. She was fine, if scared, her voice high and tight like she was fighting off a panic attack. Okay, he could do this.

"I didn't realize you'd been mind-whammied, Stark, or I'd have - "

Oh come on. "Did any of you take a moment to realize Reindeer Games hasn't said a word? He's still standing here shivering in silence. If he was so evil shouldn't he have brainwashed us all already?"

He locked eyes with Loki, and took a minute to truly understand what he saw before him. Much of the pomp and grandeur that had marked the alien's rampage through the city was gone, which Tony considered could simply be a consequence of getting his ass kicked, but there was more. He'd seen the monitors; Loki was terrified. Sure maybe it was only fear of whatever punishment awaited him in space viking land, but Tony couldn't shake what he'd seen with his own eyes.  

Case and point, Loki's eyes. Greener than the trees behind them, if that could be possible. Wide open, pupils dilated, and slightly damp. Not a hint of the mad blue that Tony had faced up in the penthouse. Damn.

"I'm working on a theory here, Green Eyes, one I need you to confirm. When you threw me out of my penthouse window your eyes were the same electric blue as Hawkeye and the scientist, Selvig, which is the same electric blue as that rock in your scepter. Simple deduction tells me that anyone who gets whammied get's the blue-eyed treatment, and since you got the ultimate care in cognitive reclalibration courtesy of my not-so-friendly green giant buddy, I'm thinking you weren't the mastermind behind this whole fiasco. Were you?"

There was a second Tony thought Loki wouldn't answer. The Asguardian had all but stopped breathing, his eyes opening impossibly wide by the end of Tony's speech. Then, he took a breath, licked his lips once, twice, paused and closed his eyes. 'Bracing himself' Tony realized.

One long moment, then "No". Loki flinched hard, like the soft word had hurt him somehow, but just as quickly, those eyes popped open wide in disbelief. Damn.

"You expected that to hurt." Tony heard someone swear behind him. 

"Yes," Loki confirmed. He shot a nervous look at the sniper behind Tony's head. "I expected that to hurt badly."

Tony blinked. Even the Asguardian's diction was different. "That means someone had to be controlling you, even monitoring you, from the moment you landed here."

Loki's hair fell into his eyes as he nodded, shaking again. "Yes."

Okay, too close to the danger zone. Tony considered his options, and the silence, before making his next move. He sent Thor a quelling glare when the Prince made to speak. "Did you want to come to earth at all, Loki?"

Loki seemed to shrink in on himself, shooting a furtive glance Thor's way. "Not this time."

"Not this time?" Fury's voice cut through the air from somewhere to Tony's left. "You've been here before?"
Loki hunched in on himself, shooting looks at both Thor and Tony. "Y-yes? I have a house in Prague." He peered up at Tony. "I like Midgard."

"Brother!" The Asguardian prince shouted, bending low trying to catch Loki's eye. Or something. All Tony could see was Loki shielding his head, nearly curled up on the ground. Thunder crashed with every word and Thor's meaty grip on his arm the only thing keeping him up.

"You mean to say this madness is not of your own doing? Have you no shame? Innocent lives - "

"Thor, shut up. The adults are speaking." Thunder rumbled above them. Was that lightning in his eyes?

"Have care how you speak, Son of Stark. My brother - "

"If this is how you treat your brother," he gestured to Loki literally quivering on the ground, "then I hope you never have children."
With color high in his cheeks, Thor had the good grace to look guilty. even if his grip on the magic hammer tightened.

"Loki, you with me?" That was soothing, right? He could be a bit soothing in the middle of an informal interrogation while he had a gun to his head, right? "Just a couple more questions and the I'll be out of your hair, alright?"

There was a moment of simply watching Loki-the-shivering-lump-of-alien, before he shifted. With more grace than Tony would have expected from him, Loki shakily rose to his feet. It didn't escape anyone's notice that he leaned as far away from Thor as the blonde's grip on his arm would allow. "I apologize." He enunciated the words like it hurt to say them. It probably did. "I don't feel quite myself, at the moment."

"Are you hurt?"

Barton scoffed, and he knew it was Barton because the gun held to the back of his head moved with the sound. "We just kicked his ass, Stark. Of course he's injured."

"Okay, let me clarify. Did you come to this planet injured? Were you injured before we started fighting?"

Loki hesitated, eyes flitting to those around them. Breathing quickening. Not good. 

"Hey, Tall and Pointy, look at me. Okay? It's alright, you don't have to answer. We'll take that as a yes, okay? One last question, and then we're done. Okay?" Loki didn't nod, but Tony knew he had his attention. Damn, but in that moment, Loki looked just as scared as Jena had the night he first met her. Something in his chest twitched, and Tony knew there was no turning back now. "Last one, buddy, alright? Who hurt you and forced you to come to earth?"

Here, a lone tear slid down Loki's cheek, and then he met Tony's eyes. Here, was resignation, the likes of which you only saw on a dying man. Loki took a breath, two more tears fell, and then he spoke. "Thanos."

And Loki screamed. 

~**~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~

It literally happened in the blink of an eye. 

One minute Tony was fine, interrogating Loki like he didn't have every gun in the area pointed at his head - and there were enough laser marks to verify that - the next he was down on the ground. Jena thought for one split second he had been shot before the view somehow cleared and she suddenly had a zoomed in view of the ground. Loki screamed, writhing and contorting like he was trying to come out of his body. Tony had grabbed his head, the one part of him that didn't move, and only God knew what the man was expecting the alien to hear over his own screams. 

Hawkeye had hit the ground, screaming and clutching his head. His gun fell who-knows-where and then Black Widow was next to him, holding him down and then Captain Rogers came to help and then suddenly someone was pulling her away, saying it wasn't safe and the next thing Jena knew she was back in the limo, someone blocking the door, trying to process just what had just happened. 

Three hours later she sat in a plain grey room with Stark, practically crushed against his side. Not that she could blame him. The man had been targeted with many assault weapons by people who could kill you with their pinkies, had been taken to a secret flying - flying! - airbase and then interrogated to within an inch of his life. And that was before they had tried to interrogate her. 

"Again, over my dead body."

It wasn't like she knew anything. At all. Really. Tony had not breathed a word about anything that didn't have to do with her eating, her sleeping, her wearing his clothes or him swearing to kill Maxwell for the last week. She found out Loki's name on the car ride to the park that morning. By accident. Interrogating her would be a complete waste of SHIELD's time. That didn't mean she wanted to be interrogated, though, so Stark could continue to try and fuse her to his spine, thanks. 

"Stark, you're being childish." Black Widow had a way of expressing so much with her voice that never made it onto her face. 

"Thank you. I'm glad you've noticed. Now, if you'll excuse me - "

"You think you're leaving? Stark, you just threw this entire operation into the air and shot it to death - "

"I did no such thing. All I did was ask a couple questions - "

" - Fury is spitting nails. Neither Barton, Selvig nor Loki are responding - "

" - the intelligent thing to do. Kind of like what an intelligence agency is suppo - "

" - keeps trying to see his brother and threatening to bring the might of Asgard down on our heads - "

" - but you were all so busy trying to ship him off you forgot to do your jobs - "

"and Coulson is alive."

"I - What?" Jena had no idea who Coulson was, but the way Stark dropped back into his seat meant he was someone important. "How?"

"We don't know. He appeared in medical shortly after the attack and they managed to save him. It was dicey for a few days. He's in a medically induced coma. They're making sure nothing alien is gonna come out of this and bite us all in the butt, but he's alive."

Tony swore, and Jena watched Widow retake her seat. Maybe if she kept very still and very quiet she'd learn something else. "I gotta tell Pepper."

"That information doesn't leave this room," Widow snapped. She gave Tony a look that wasn't quite a glare but just as scary. "It's technically over your clearance level and you're not supposed to know, so zip it, Stark."

"So why tell me?" 

"Because I need you to trust me."

Tony snorted. Personally, Jena agreed. "Right. I don't follow your logic, here."

Widow shifted in her seat. "What I'm about to say doesn't leave this room." Here, she sent Jena a glare that could melt steel. Jen gulped and tried to hide behind Stark even more. "Fury is losing his mind over this entire situation. He wants to bring you in, but he has reservations. Thanos, for all we know of him, seems to be the worst kind of news, and Fury wants to get as far ahead of any plans he may have had for the planet as possible. This requires know-how and resources SHIELD does not have, but you do."

"Still not following. Why do I need to trust you?"

Widow's pause gave made Jena uncomfortable. "The Director is not above scare tactics. I've been ordered to get you on board using any means necessary, including threatening your daughter."

Stark went absolutely rigid, and for a moment Jena thought he'd stopped breathing. Thankfully, Widow wasn't done. "Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Fury doesn't understand your motivations, or the lengths you'll go to to accomplish something you set your mind on. Since I'm not interested in you setting your mind on destroying SHIELD and everything it stands for, I'm telling you this information against direct orders. My suggestion, let me train her - 

"Over my dead body - "

"Will you stop being difficult for one moment and just think, Stark?" Widow barked, sitting forward in her seat. "Small lessons once or twice a week, simple things like self defense or Judo, escaping confinement things she's going to need if I fail this assignment and Fury sends in someone who won't pander to an overprotective father!" They glared at each other a moment before she sighed. "No guns. I'll tell Fury it was your one condition and that it seemed reasonable enough since we're all gonna be at the Tower anyway - "

"Oh? Says who?"

"I've been surveilling you this past week, Stark. I've seen the plans." Tony doesn't respond. "I told Fury you have a heart but for some reason he's convinced you do everything for your own benefit. I'm sure if he could see you with Jena - "

"Just stop it." Stark relaxed, and Jena shifted enough till the man had his own chair back. He sat stiffly though, which told her his mind was still doing that think-of-all-possible-scenarios thing. Not that she minded, but...

"I wouldn't mind the self-defense stuff." She tried to whisper it, but Jena could feel Widow's eyes on her. "I mean, I don't want to learn how to kill anyone, but if I could just learn how to get away from Maxwe - "

"You don't need to get away from someone you're never going to see again."

"Yeah, but, dad, you've said that before - " Stark looked at her so quickly Jena flinched, and something in Stark's eyes said plainly that she'd said the wrong thing. Maybe it was the dad thing. Was that too fast? Did he think she was trying to manipulate him? Granted, she was, but that also seemed as good a time as any to test it out, just to see if it was okay. Maybe it wasn't? "Sorry?"

Tony took her hand in a grip that was both firm and gentle and shot to his feet. "I'm taking my kid home. You can - "

"I can't let you do that, Stark. We're in the middle of a crisis."

They were out the door to the small office before Jena realized they were moving."I'll let you know when I've made my decision. Don't call us. We won't answer - "

"Stark! Stark, stop. That's not how this works. You - "

"Sorry, got a tired kid to put to bed, and we missed lunch. Gotta go." Four agents stepped out of a room up ahead, but Tony did not stop, shoving through the group and down the hallway. "Excuse me, pardon me. Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, father coming through - " 

"Dammit, Stark! Stop, or I will shoot."

At this, Tony whipped around, somehow maneuvering her to stand directly behind him, out of the line of fire. She couldn't see his face, but Jena knew by the set of his shoulders that Tony was pissed. 

"Do you want me to destroy your helicarrier? It's only been a week, but I can knock it out of the air for you no problem if you like. Don't you ever point a gun at my daughter again, Natalie, or you won't live to regret it." From around Tony's arm, Jena watched Widow stash her gun and raise both hands up, empty. The suits milled behind her, looking unsure if they should pull their weapons or not. 

"Stark, you have to know I'm not the bad guy here."

"You tell Fury that I said he can sweat for a bit, and if it gets to be too much, he can take a vacation. That's what he said when I told him what I saw in the portal, so I guess its good enough for him too. If I don't call you, you don't call me. Do your damn jobs, and I'll do mine. Got it?"

Widow gave him a sour look. "Got it. Let them pass."

A series of clicks sounded behind her and Jena jumped, only to find a squad of six armed agents arranged down the corridor, all standing against the walls to clear the hallway. With one more look over his shoulder, Tony led her away. 

They were back at the tower within the hour.