of gods and monsters

“Holy shit-”

Tony is definitely looking into Asgardian compensation. Swerving to avoid the giant flaming slimeball – courtesy of Loki and the Slime, Loki being the far more benevolent enemy, yet also causing them so much more trouble by using the Slime against them – Tony wonders if King Odin would feel up to sending, oh, half a dozen of his fancy warriors down to work full-time as a Loki Clean-Up Crew. FRIDAY brings up a small panel inside the suit, showing how the afire slimeball hits the glass window of a small business that hasn’t had the chance to install their prepaid SI insurance blinds, sticking to it and melting the glass to sludge, fire going out shortly as Loki summons the living flame to yet another slimeball.

“This is getting out of hand,” Tony mutters.

“Yeah, no shit,” Clint replies, before one of his chemical arrows hits said other now-blazing slimeball, turning it into a round frozen ball that drops to the ground, shattering on the street below. “Thor, has Loki got his bored face on, yet?”

“Unfortunately not, my friend – I do believe he is going to surprise us,” Thor replies wearily, sending a groan through the majority of the team. Loki himself snickers. Through the comm system.

“Loki, stop inviting yourself to our group-chat,” Tony berates, firing at the main slime-machine that the elusive Slime had placed earlier. The miniature missile hits it, but as expected, not all the slime around the street immediately drops. “If you’d like to help us for once, then track down the other slime machines and give us some idea of where they are.”

“Of course, Man of Iron. It would be my pleasure,” Loki says, voice dripping with glee. Tony grunts as he makes a quick shift in the suit, avoiding one of the last flaming slimes and then another slime-machine that the Hulk throws at it.

“We really need to block Loki from accessing our comm units,” says Capsicle from the Base, obviously annoyed that his crushed side hasn’t finished healing yet, but probably eating snacks and ice-cream with Natasha right now, if the familiar, smug sounds of eating from Natasha’s line is proof enough. “Iron Man-”

“I’ll be on it before we get back to the tower, don’t worry, red-white-and-blue,” Tony interrupts, firing at a slime that then has to deal with a double-barrage as Thor directs lightning at it, causing a signal break-up. “Ooh, Thorzy, that was good. Let’s two-time them like that, it defo worked.”

“Aye, Man of Iron, a fine working strategy.” Tony starts to sync with Thor a bit more, following his movements on the ground and timing their shots. “Brother-mine, have you found the machines which these slime monsters are controlled from?”

Loki, who is now sitting beside Clint, watching them with a box of popcorn, hums. “Oh yes, I knew from the start. If you would direct the green beast to either end of the street, you’ll find two violently green vehicles parked beside the entrances to subways.”

“Shit,” Tony grumbles.

“We can’t direct the Hulk to them, Loki,” Steve says, voice uneasy. “Civilians can get hurt if things go flying into the subway entrances. Health and safety says the entrances can’t be blocked off during attacks, either, so there’s no way of stopping any debris.”

“Then I will provide adequate shielding,” the God of Mischief replies, before his popcorn-eating self shimmers in the sunlight, disappearing. That explains why Clint didn’t boot him off the roof, Tony thinks, spying the real Loki wandering up to the northern subway entrance, a green force-field appearing.

Still working with Thor, Tony listens in as Clint gets the Hulk’s attention, telling him the sitch. Ever since his vacation off-planet, during the whole Hydra/Winter Soldier incident, the Hulk has been a lot more controlled, a boon if anything, despite Tony’s wish that Bruce were around when he discovered Russian Capsicle had killed his parents when brainwashed. After receiving his orders from Clint, the Hulk makes his way north, the surface of the road sinking under his weight before springing back into place. Tony is very proud of New York’s roads and sidewalks, now – Stark nanobots injected into the second over-layer concrete mix, repairing and adjusting the upper layers to take heavier loads while the base layers beneath stay intact.

Loki himself disappears to the end of the street when the Hulk arrives, still skittish of him despite how he’d been responsible for the ridding of Thanos’ influence, playing whack-a-Loki in the penthouse. The forcefield over the second subway entrance appears, but then, Loki does the opposite.

“Thor,” Tony starts, “Loki’s gone AWOL.”

Together, they take down a Big Slime forming, usually a sign that the Slime themself could tell the battle was coming to a close. Tony has to say, they’ve come along since their original slime formula, but they still haven’t worked out how to get long-range transmitters working or work out the kink about over-charging their ‘circuits’, per-say. The Hulk takes out the last slime-machine soon after, the smaller slimes dissolving into green puddles, quick to be taken by the road nanobots to the Hazardous Materials sorting plant.

“Man of Iron,” Thor says, turning off his comm as Tony drops down beside him, the Hulk meandering over, still in alert mode. “My brothers own grand finale may yet be approaching. I would advise remaining on alert.”

“Agreed, Thor,” Steve says seriously, before quiet falls. Tony scans the empty street, FRIDAY noting the damage and arranging a compensation check to be sent to the small business for their windows. Not raising his visor for a quick quip, however, in retrospect is a mistake.

‘Sir, an unknown gas is filling the suit,’ FRIDAY starts. ‘Ventilation system inoperative.’

“What the hell?” Tony mutters, before tasting the unfamiliar gas on his tongue. It burns like chilli, but is otherwise pleasant. Immediately, he shuts his mouth, FRIDAY quickly becoming audibly worried as his visor refuses to lift, his suit unresponsive to commands. Reaching up, he tries to manually take off his helmet, but even the manual switches are stuck. He can hear everyone else over the comms noticing his behaviour, FRIDAY alerting them to the danger.

Thor is quick to try prying the helmet from his head, but as soon as he touches it, green magic stings him and he backs away.

“This is Loki’s doing. Brother!” he yells, twisting and trying to spy him on the street somewhere. Meanwhile, Tony’s lungs are burning and he feels dizzy. Oxygen deprivation, he thinks, before smelling the gas suddenly, feeling it creep up into his nose and down the back of his throat, touching the back of his tongue. Shit, he swears, knowing whatever magic doozy Loki’s giving him has already found a way into his system.

What bare skin he has inside the suit – his face, wrists, neck and ankles – itches.

“Dammit,” he breathes in deeply, to FRIDAY’s horror. “It was making its way in through my nose and skin. Open up the suit.” Miraculously, the suit opens up and as Tony steps out, he can feel the gas inside his lungs, a completely foreign entity that sits inside of him like-

“Well, what do we have here?” Loki appears on top of a nearby car. Thor approaches, hand going to his brothers throat, hauling him up.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Loki glares angrily, grasping his brothers wrist tightly, holding himself up awkwardly, legs kicking. It’s then that Tony notices he’s wearing a different outfit – dressed in proper Earth clothes, in a pair of dark grey skinny-jeans, a t-shirt, suit jacket, shiny dress shoes and sunglasses, hair in a bun at the base of his neck. Much different from his traditional armour, which he was wearing before, as per usual during a fight.

“Change of clothes, Reindeer Games?” Tony questions in a high voice, suddenly unable to grasp his low range. Blinking, he puts a hand to his throat. “Where the fuck is my Adams Apple?”

“What?” Clint appears out of nowhere, coming over and tugging away Tony’s hand. “Shit, it’s gone, it’s actually fucking gone.”

Tony feels oddly uncomfortable in his shirt, suddenly. Tugging at the edge of it, he fidgets, wrinkling his nose as Thor looks at him with suddenly wide eyes.

“Lady Stark,” he blurts out, getting a couple of extremely odd looks, before Loki starts laughing, delighted.

“Oh my! Whoever did this to you surely has a sense of humour!”

“Well, seeing as it was you-” Tony starts, before feeling a very familiar weight disappear between his legs. His words stumble over themselves as he looks down, horrified, hand going to his empty fucking crotch. “What the hell?”

“Shit, Tony!” Clint is laughing, actually fucking laughing.

“What’s going on?” Steve questions.

“Loki turned Tony into a girl!” Clint replies, lowering his bow from where he had it aimed at Loki.

“I did not,” Loki replies, sniggering.

“It was your magic,” Thor points out.

“Still wasn’t me,” the green-clad Aesir replies with a shake of his head.

Tony breathes in quickly, feeling a panic-attack on the horizon as he- she?- crosses her arms over his chest, which doesn’t feel any less uncomfortable than it did before – he hopes that means it’s stopped growing – but he’s seen pictures of other women in just shirts. I don’t want my fucking nipples all over the internet, he thinks, before the Hulk begins to shrink down, dark purple trousers shrinking with him, courtesy of the same nanobots in the street.

“…what’s going on? Tony?” Bruce stares at him- her?

“I’ve been turned into a woman,” Tony says, looking at Loki, who’s still sniggering. “Why would you do this?”

“I didn’t do this,” he looks Tony up and down, amused, before pausing. “Wait. Did you say I changed clothes, earlier? Was I here, causing mischief?”

“Yes, brother.”

“Well…that’s certainly interesting,” Loki says, losing all happy expression to look at him, as if he’s a science experiment – which isn’t bad, science experiments are fine, but Tony feels like he’s being checked out and that is unnecessarily hot when it’s Loki doing the checking. “I have been making headway with Doctor Strange, recently, but I very much doubt even if we do become friends, she’ll let me use the Time Stone for such an endeavour as this.” Thor finally lets go of him at that, as if burned.

“The Time Stone, Loki? It is here? On Midgard?”

“Time Stone – like the Infinity Stones?” Clint questions. “Shit, is that, what, four now? Space, Mind, Soul and Time, too?”

“Reality, also,” Thor rumbles, troubled.

“There’s a rumour that the Power Stone has been located, as well,” Loki mutters. “It is in the next Galaxy over, apparently. Some sort of space-faring version of the Avengers guard it. Adequate and ironic, seeing as the Avengers guard both the Mind and Soul gems.”

Tony glances at Bruce at the same time as the rest of them, who coughs and rubs his chest, bright, round orange tattoo. It was something the Press had taken notice of very quickly, seeing as it appears on the Hulk, too, a vibrant display that lit up in the heat of battle the first time – and all the subsequent times after – for all the world to see.

“If,” Bruce tries to redirect their attention, “if Doctor Strange hasn’t let you use the Time Stone, then are you just lying when you say it wasn’t you who…changed, Tony?”

Tony swallows deeply, the feeling strange. His whole body feels different and he both wants to go back to normal and inspect himself – herself. Glancing at Loki, he forces herself not to step back as his hand glows green, waving over him a little. His eyes glow a little, before that fades along with his hand.

“Very strange. It was certainly me, but I have not done this to you.”

“So what, you’re a time traveller, now? Or have you just got a clone running around New York wreaking havoc, Lokes?”

Loki opens his mouth to most likely deny it, but he pauses, before twisting to look at Thor. “Mother is dead.”

Thor flinches dramatically. “Yes. What does that have to do with this matter, Loki?” His hand clenches around Mjolnir, but Loki just repeats himself.

“Mother is dead, Thor. All her immediate magics will have fallen apart, even the age-long enchantments, if they were not made with another. Do you know not what that means, Thor?” Thor frowns, but he doesn’t reply, causing Loki to sigh. “Every magic of hers is gone, Thor. Every magic. Including those that imprison-” he stops, clenching his jaw.

Tony then abruptly remembers some Norse Mythology.

“Ooh, wait, so do you really have kids like the books say? The ones that are supposed to bring Ragnarok?”

Loki glances back at him sharply. “Excuse me? My son is not supposed to bring Ragnarok.”

“According to the books, that’s supposed to be plural on the kid-front, Reindeer Games. Or are all our myths just bullshit?”

Loki blanches.

Thor clears his throat. “Lady Stark-” fuck, that’s weird, it’s like I’m suddenly in drag, except I don’t feel confident AF at all “-your mythologies are somewhat correct, but other details, such as Loki’s supposed children, are false.”

“Fenrir is a shapeshifter,” Loki abruptly says. “Yet he only can shift into that of a wolf. He was unfairly banished from Asgard when he accidentally ate Thor’s hand. Thor was fine, once Eir sewed it back on, but the Allfather was furious. He sent Fenrir to Jotunheim, trapping him in his beast form, but Heimdall brought him back on orders from Mother. She argued with Odin that Fenrir is young yet and instead had Odin agree to bind him to the Undercity.”

“Undercity?”

“Asgard is old and builds on the old – a barrier was created to separate Asgard from its Undercity. Most of the Aesir vacated it after the war against Jotunheim was ended, however. It is empty. Fenrir prowls there alone, bound by golden chains of my mothers magic. With her death, he would be free to leave.”

“And how the fuck does that relate to Tony’s genderbend?” Clint questions.

“It doesn’t,” Loki smiles genuinely. “But I only just realised. He looks like me, oft-times. My son hasn’t seen sunlight in two hundred years and now he may be able to, once more.”

“Can we get back to me, please? Not to be self-centred or anything,” Tony starts, “but I really don’t want to be a lady.”

“The magic is complex and woven by a future me – I do suppose the Time Stone has some involvement, after all – and my future self has made sure that it cannot be reversed,” Loki says.

“So I’ll be a lady forever?” Tony tries to reconcile that with himself – herself. He looks down at his hands, abruptly realising that they look like his mothers hands, all Spanish tan and piano fingers, even if they still have all his scars and workshop burns. I probably look a lot like her.

“I could transfer the enchantment to another,” Loki then reveals. “I would be the best candidate, actually. It’s much easier to take your own magic unto yourself and I’m a shapeshifter besides.”

“A noble deed,” Thor puts a hand on Loki’s shoulder as Loki looks at Tony, waiting his answer.

“…I’d say do it, but where does that leave you?”

“Shapeshifter, Tony,” Loki says, before a strange kind of transformation goes over him – her, Tony realises quickly. The Loki in front of him looks not much different to her male self, but there are differences. Her jaw is far more triangular and her hair has come out of its bun, lengthened and twisting down to her elbows. Ever her clothes have adjusted themselves, suit jacket becoming a women’s blazer, highlighting her waist and bust. Tony gets to have a good look before she reverts into male form again. “I’m what you Midgardians call genderfluid, quite literally.”

“…great. Awesome. So, you don’t mind changing me back, then?”

“Not at all – but you might,” Loki grins, before stepping forwards into Tony’s personal space, leaning down and kissing him. Tony jerks, but it’s like their lips are stuck together. Their mouths open and Tony feels a cheeky bit of tongue before that foreign feeling inside him rises up through his throat. Unlike going in, it’s far cooler and sweeter than chilli, like liquid candyfloss, or air as it were. Tony hasn’t shut her eyes, however and neither has Loki.

It’s kind of weird – really weird – seeing each others eyes, but then Loki snakes his tongue into Tony’s mouth again. Tony decides to reply accordingly.

Might as well get a free make-out session, he thinks, shutting his eyes and grasping Loki’s jacket. Likewise, Loki moves his hand to Tony’s cheek, leaning further down, forcing Tony’s head back. Tol and smol, he thinks vaguely, before feeling the sweet exchange finish.

Though…they keep making out for maybe another thirty seconds. Tony doesn’t think anyone could be blamed in the situation, because both of them are obviously hot as hell. Clint, Thor and Bruce would never see this gorgeous mess happen ever again, either, so they might as well put on a show.

When they part, it’s the female Loki in front of him and Tony is definitely a male again, junk back in place and boobs gone. Even his hands are back to normal. It occurs to him that if he wants to see himself as a woman, he’ll have to hack some security cameras.

He wants to know if he looked like Maria.

“Your welcome,” Lady Loki smirks, before looking back at the mildly uncomfortable Thor, hair flipping over her shoulder. “Brother dearest, I’m taking a short trip to Asgard. Do be a darling and somehow get a Midgardian identity set up for Fenrir while I’m gone. He should be the equivalent of seven or eight, by now.” She looks back to Tony, winking once before disappearing in front of their eyes.

“…well, this’ll be a funny report to hand in,” Clint ends.

The newspapers really like the end to the Slime attack, apparently.

“Ooh, look, I haven’t seen that angle, yet,” Tony points out a picture from some LA rag, zooming in on his female self. Rhodey grimaces at having to see the picture of Loki and Tony kissing again. “C’mon, Rhodey, it’s not that bad. I look like my mom, even.”

“And here I thought you were just studying your latest conquest.”

“Nah, man, Loki’s got a kid and everything. That’s the kind of commitment I avoid like the plague. I mean, there’s also the magic god who can have magic god babies thing, so…yeah. I want to avoid spawning. I’m still not sure there’s not some Loki from the future slash Loki clone walking about.”

“Well, there’s definitely a female Tony clone walking about,” Rhodey says calmly.

“What?” Tony blinks.

Rhodey puts down his coffee, pointing at the picture Tony has up on the holo-screen. “Look, there, in the alleyway.”

Tony shift the picture about, zooming in. He frowns deeply. “FRIDAY, can you get some other footage with her in it?”

‘Yes, sir. Bringing up relevant data.’ FRIDAY makes about half a dozen photos appear, some from different angles, but most from that same security camera.

“Increase picture quality.”

‘Yes, sir.’

“…shit, you’re right,” Tony says, surprises. The girl in the alleyway does look a whole lot like him as a woman, but way younger and with a different jawline. “I know that jawline from somewhere.”

“Maybe Loki from the future brought back your kid from the future, too,” Rhodey jokes, making Tony roll his eyes and save the pictures to a folder in the system, turning off the holoboard.

“Yeah, like Loki and I are ever going to have kids.”

Thor comes into the tower one day with a small being on his shoulders, whose eyes are hidden behind a dark pair of sunglasses. He’s got dark skin and an unruly afro of hair that seems to have been combed back at some point and then decided it didn’t want to be combed, the front sticking up to the ceiling with the sides shorn neatly.

“Friend-Tony! Meet my glorious nephew, Fenrir Lokison!”

“Well met, Agent J,” Tony nods to the kid, who bares bright, white teeth.

“My name is Fenrir!”

“Fine, Billy Cranston.”

The kid growls, “My name is Fenrir!”

“Peace, nephew,” Thor interrupts Tony’s next nickname. “Tony finds humour in giving his friends nicknames. For instance, Steve is ‘Capsicle’, for his is Captain American and he was frozen like the frozen popsicle snack. Natasha, too, is called ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’, a pun on her codename, Black Widow, a type of spider. ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ is a child’s nursery rhyme, I have come to understand.”

“Tell me it,” Fenrir demands.

“Be nice, wolf-boy,” Tony says. “In my tower, you ask, you don’t order – unless it’s to do with the health and safety of the tower residents and visitors.”

There’s a short silence, before Fenrir speaks again, quieter and far more polite than before. “Uncle Thor, would you tell me this Midgardian nursery rhyme?”

As Thor recites the age-old children’s poetry, Tony checks out the template Thor had asked him to make up for Fenrir. Editing it, he changes the ethnicity he’d assumed would be Caucasian, considering Loki and Thor both, to mixed black before standing from his place on the sofa, meandering over to the stationary Thor.

“Kiddo, take off your sunglasses and gimme a smile,” Tony says.

Fenrir glances down. “You just said not to order people about unless it’s to do with health and safety.”

“This is about your safety, trust me. If you don’t have an ID, bad things can happen and ID’s need up to date pictures of their owners. Is this what you usually look like? Your mom said you were a shapeshifter.”

“Fenrir prefers this form,” Thor answers for his nephew, “but he has multiple forms he is fond of.”

“I’ll make multiple up ID’s, then. I’m sure the not-so-secretly-alive Agent Coulson can sneak them in there somewhere. Just need a picture for each of them,” Tony says, bringing up the camera on the StarkTab he has in hand. Bringing it up, he waits expectantly. “Sunglasses off, please.”

Fenrir hesitates, before reaching up and taking them off. Tony is briefly shocked by the bright amber, before he takes a picture.

“Can you shift between your other usual forms, please?” Fenrir obliges and it’s pretty cool to watch the kid become six other people, two of them at least visibly female. Tony asks questions about each of them – asking their preferred genders, physical sexes, names, pronouns and if Fenrir knew whether he was actually Aesir in some of them, considering his mother’s species.

To his surprise, it’s the last question which throws the kid off. He can’t answer properly, looking at Thor in confusion as he puts his sunglasses back on – Loki wasn’t kidding about him not having seen sunlight in a while, apparently, though in retrospect it’s pretty brave for the kid to take them off while still getting used to how bright it is on Earth.

“Mother is Aesir, isn’t she?” Fenrir questions.

Tony hides his grimace, knowing the problem here, Thor’s face contorting into one of similar realisation. Fenrir is brought down from his shoulders, placed on the ground gently.

“Nephew, I must meet with Loki on urgent, private business on matters she has not consulted you on. Would you acquiesce to staying with the Man of Iron, presently, while I do so?”

“I do not know him.”

“Loki trusts him.”

…well, that’s surprising, Tony thinks as Thor leaves a few seconds later, Fenrir perfectly fine with staying after that pronouncement. The kid, back to his usual form, walks over to the sofas, sitting down on the single beanbag that Vision and Wanda usually claim if Pietro hasn’t snatched his sister away to sit with Natasha, staring at the television. It’s playing Golden Girls, which isn’t as bad as other things Tony could have had on in the background. Actually, it’s probably pretty okay for him to watch it, if he’s learning Earth things.

A little more comfortable with the situation, Tony sits down again, having FRIDAY keep an eye out for any inappropriate material for a sort-of-seven-year-old as he edits Fenrir’s original ID and plays about with his other ones. However, apparently the beanbag doesn’t agree with Fenrir, because before the episode of Golden Girls even finishes, he’s climbing onto Tony’s lap, ignoring his protestations.

“Mother trusts you, so I do, too. Please be quiet now, so I might watch this riveting media.”

Tony had planned to go into focus mode at some point. He still does, to his own surprise, only snapping out of when Loki comes to call with Thor by the elevator, lifting the snoozing Fenrir from on top of him.

“Thank-you for looking after him, Anthony,” Loki thanks quietly, resting Fenrir on her hip, rocking slightly as he shifts in his sleep. “I owe you a favour.”

“I don’t mind babysitting the little guy. He’s not so bad, when he’s enjoying some prime TV,” Tony says, glancing at the TV, which is still playing Golden Girls something like four hours later. Must be a marathon going on. “If you’re busy, I don’t mind doing this again.”

Okay, what the fuck. Why the fuck did I offer to do that?

Loki smiles, however. “A generous offer, Man of Iron. Mayhaps, I will take you up on it. But for now, we must part. I shall convey a farewell to Fenrir from you.”

“Right, cool. Tell him it was good having him round.”

“I will. Good day to you, Anthony.”

The next few months are strange. Mainly because Fenrir makes a point in visiting Tony whenever he has free time. One time, he even has the NYPD on his tail because he visits Stark Tower during his school’s lunchtime, not returning in time for class. The fact that he goes to school isn’t really the alarming part of that sentence, in retrospect, but to be fair, Tony didn’t realise Loki had actually enrolled him in school at all.

“He could go to a better one,” Tony argues with the god, who’s in his male form rather than his female, which has been the go-to since the Slime Attack. “I could get that kid places.”

“Fenrir is getting comfortable,” Loki shakes his head. “He would not do well with another change, so quickly. You forget – this is a new planet for him. At least on Asgard, he knew what kind of thing to expect.”

“Swords and basket-weaving?” Tony jokes, knowing what he’s saying is bullshit – Asgard is far more advanced than Thor used to make it out to be. “Seriously though, if he gets kicked out or if he gets bullied or something, I can pull strings. I’ve got a couple of kid prodigies around the world I keep an eye out for.”

“Really?” Loki raises an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

Tony tells. Oh, he tells. Rhodey makes fun of him for it, but why shouldn’t Tony show off his kids? Harley Keener was the first – he’s getting on in advanced chemistry and engineering classes right now, with private tutoring on the side. Tony goes out to Tennessee to see him too many times a month to be good for his schedule, but what can he say? They’re connected.

Harley might also be his biological son, however, that’s between Matilda Keener, Tony and no-one else – Harley doesn’t care either way, the eavesdropper, so long as Tony gives his mother money to support them every so often and visits. Neither requirement is a hardship for Tony, no hardship whatsoever.

Peter Parker, his more superhero-based mentee, is doing good as Spiderman while also getting on in school at Midtown Tech – he and his team won the Academic Decathlon this year, a feat on Peter’s part seeing as he was collaborating with Tony to take down a Chitauri arms dealer by the name of Vulture at the same time. Honestly, Tony doesn’t know how the kid does it – he’s also in the marching band as a trumpet player, Robotics Club and the Star Wars Appreciation Club. That club camped out for three entire days to see The Last Jedi and Peter was still swinging around Queens in the Spidersuit with KAREN.

There’s also Riri Williams, a spitfire who reverse-engineered parts of Whiplash’s HAMMER drones to create her own Iron Kid suit. A mathematics genius and only nine years old, Tony’s already found himself funding her summer exploits, paying for her engineering summer camp and other pieces of equipment for her laboratory – aka, her backyard shed that her parents have had to rebuild on three different occasions because it burnt down.

Lila Rhodes, Rhodey’s niece, also has her spot on his Kid Wall of Fame. Tony has plans for Lila – big plans, if she’s up for it. Lila’s a good mechanic and she’s helped him out with patching her uncle’s Iron Patriot armour multiple times. Currently in the Navy, she’s a marine engineer and Tony hopes once she’s got some service on her record, she’ll transfer across the board into the Avengers Initiative, to take Rhodey’s place as the new Iron Patriot.

Loki is the first one to hear this plan, other than FRIDAY. The god listens and thinks on it over lunch, which is spent with Fenrir and Thor, who compete to see who can eat more garlic bread than the other. Fenrir wins because he has the foresight to challenge Thor after his uncle has already eaten four plates of pasta and an entire bowl of potato salad.

“Ugh,” Thor groans, dropping onto the sofa with another moan. “I ate too much.”

“You have to take me back to school, now,” Fenrir informs him and Thor makes more pained noises before standing, hauling his nephew over his shoulder and trudging out onto the balcony. Tony and Loki watch them leave in barely-veiled amusement.

“At what point will Thor realise Fenrir’s a manipulative little shit?” Tony questions fondly, Loki shaking his head.

“He already knows. Thor loves my son, however, probably too much. Mothi and Magni died young.”

“Mo-who and Mag-what?”

“Mothi and Magni,” Loki repeats, giving Tony a careful look. “Thor’s twin sons.”

What the hell?

“They…Thor had sons,” Tony struggles to comprehend that fact. “Who died.”

“Assassinations by the most vile. Sif was the one to find them. Her screams woke the palace and her grief turned her hair darker than a ravens feather,” Loki says. “They were too young. Both Thor and the Lady Sif were hardly more than…teenagers. Odin did not argue against their decision to dissolve their marriage.”

“Should you be telling me this? Would Thor want me to know?” Tony questions, worried Loki has crossed a line. He never even knew Thor had been married, let alone that he had a family. Tony can’t imagine having gone through that kind of horror as a teen.

“Thor mentioned them to me the night he brought Fenrir home to me,” Loki says softly, hand reaching slightly, brushing Tony’s arms. “He was ready to talk of them, those few months ago. They were but babes who never even crawled. Thor misses what could have been. If you asked, he would tell. I am not sure of the Lady Sif, but I would believe that the day she finally accepted their deaths, her hair would turn sun-blonde again.”

Loki falls silent. Then, his wandering hand slips into Tony’s. The inventor cocks his head, staring at it. Loki’s grasp is cool and there’s a drop of pasta sauce on the table next to it, a bright, red-orange dot on the white marble that just annoys the heck out of Tony – enough that he lets go of Loki’s hand just to wipe it, before reaching upwards to the other god’s face, wanting to try something he hasn’t actually done in something like three years.

“Are you-” Loki blinks in surprise, before cutting himself off, eyes glinting with a sudden brightness. Loki is the one to lean down, lips meeting Tony’s. It’s clearly voluntary and Tony doesn’t regret it, not when their tongues dip and dive, the pressure changing from soft to hard as their bodies gravitate closer, hips connecting.

Tony feels a hand on his back and another carding through his hair, tugging. He grunts at the sharpness of it, before pushing back, turning Loki into the island table.

Their lips part and Loki breathes heavily, giving a cheeky grin. “Oh, Anthony, how daring of you. Seducing a god?”

“Making a new myth,” Tony corrects, running a hand down Loki’s pale throat and chest. “The best Avenger made out with Loki to turn back into a dude, then started having lunch with them and their kid a lot. They made out again. That’s where we’re at now.”

“Very early on in the myth,” Loki says, “though you missed out the mystery of who turned you into a male in the first place.”

“Some magic kid of yours from the future,” Tony says, half-serious and half-joking. He waves his hand, bringing down a hologram from nowhere. “Fri, the girl?”

“Here, boss,” FRIDAY brings up the security footage, Loki reaching upwards with a shocked gasp.

“Oh. You…that…” Loki looks hypnotised. “You’re right. That is my daughter.”

“…really?” Tony frowns, remembering how Rhodey called her his female clone. He forces himself not to think about what that means, considering Loki’s reaction. “What was she doing here?”

“To drive us together, perhaps,” Loki’s hand twists up, on the edge of the hologram, just below her face. “She looks like us.”

Damnit. “Yeah,” Tony agrees, uncomfortable. His anxieties and insecurities rise up inside of him, bubbling in his chest like a soup-pot. He steps back, hands tucking into his pockets. “How was lunch?”

Loki glances away from the girl who may or may not be their future daughter, which is just freaky. “Tony, it’s just a child. I’m probably the one doing most of the work, anyway.”

“You say that now,” Tony starts, “and then later, I’m a girl again and we’re having fun, then I’m knocked up. You see it all the time in movies.” You don’t, actually – you see it in funky Avengers fanfiction that Tony really shouldn’t have searched up. He won’t be able to look at Steve’s thumb the same way ever again.

“Tony,” Loki says sharply. “You were waxing poetic about your own children only two hours ago. Don’t tell me they scare you.”

“Small ones scare me. Tiny fragile ones who take up all your time because if you leave them alone for ten minutes, they fall and hit their heads,” Tony says, defending himself, swallowing nervously. He thinks of Howard – who foisted him off on nannies and Ana Jarvis, when the nannies speaking Spanish rubbed off on him. “I don’t know how to do any of it,” he admits.

“I do,” Loki says, voice calm, but strong. “Time is fluid, however. That woman could be Fenrir’s child, for all we know.”

Tony gives a wobbly grin. “Yeah. Fenrir’s and Harley’s – our gene pool, combined in a different generation.”

Loki’s lip twitches, like he doesn’t believe what either of them are saying, but it’s the thought that counts. Tony steps back into Loki’s space again, hands worming out of his jean pockets to slide up Loki’s thighs.

“Still, that aside-” he briefly reaches up, flicking the hologram away “-what do you say? Like our myth so far?”

“Yes,” Loki says.

“I have too many kids,” Tony mutters to himself, flying over to shoot his repulsors at an enhanced gorilla. It roars back and Tony decides that the Hulk is probably better suited to beating down these guys, unless Wanda can make them sleep or something. Flying up out of the way of the gorilla’s grabby hands, he does a sweep of the area, swerving out of Peter’s way as he swings away from a netted-up gorilla to go catch another one.

“Hey, Iron Man!”

“Spiderman,” Tony greets in turn, grimacing at the sight that greets him.

Pietro is still depriving one of the gorillas of air like he’s the speedster villain from Sky High. It’s a waste of time and energy, even if it does get a few of them to stop and hoot in misery at their non-functioning silverback.

“You’d be better served somewhere else, Quicksilver,” Clint says through the comms, the Avenger back at base today, broken arm putting him out of action. “One of the outsiders are going to try grabbing you at some point in a panic and that won’t be pretty on your ribs.”

“I’ve got this,” Pietro insists. “Wanda-”

“Scarlet Witch is busy,” Tony interrupts hastily, dropping down to tag-team with Vision as Wanda has to stop fighting abruptly to stop a building from falling down on top of them all. “Get out of there, Quicksilver. Don’t make me put you on Civilian Run.”

Civilian Run is hardly a punishment, but it does stop the Avenger on Civilian Run in question from actually fighting or doing anything to help take down the enemy. Tony can hear Pietro gnashing his teeth, but a moment later, a silver-blue blur is whipping around his area, working in tandem with Vision, so Tony can shoot off into the sky again to where Steve, Natasha and Hulk are at work trying to keep some gorillas away from yet another subway station outlet.

“Do we need backup?” Tony questions. “I can get the Hulkbuster online.”

“What we need is a sedative!” Steve shouts. “The building, Wanda-”

“On it,” Tony says, miniature missiles firing at a near-downed gorilla, punching a bloody hole in its skull. “Small fry, get to it.”

“I’ve already sent out the propulsors, boss,” FRIDAY says, hundreds of flashing blue dots appearing in his visor from the north.

“Good girl,” Tony praises, before an earth-shaking howl rends the air. It makes the hairs on the back of his arms stand up and his heart skip a beat. The gorillas on the ground react quickly, turning to the source of the sound, more than a few leaving current fights to huddle up down the street, the leading silverback making chimp noises at a gigantic, amber-eyed wolf that growls at them.

…he wouldn’t. Tony’s mouth goes dry and he flies over, dropping down beside the wolf, reaching up to grab the side of his scruff, faceplate receding.

Fenrir just keeps growling at the damn gorillas.

“Get the hell off this battlefield, kid,” Tony orders, angry and scared. “You might be double my height and scary strong, but there’s at least ten of them and only one of you. There’s no time for you to argue with me on this.”

“Tony, what is that thing?” Steve asks over the comms.

“Fenrir Lokison,” Tony snaps, both over the comm and at the wolf, who finally looks at him. “You’re making an ass of this. You never should have come out here. Those gorillas will attack at any moment-”

Of course, that is when the gorillas suddenly pound the ground and surge forwards as one towards Fenrir. Immediately, Fenrir’s dangerous, haughty stand drops and for how monstrous his wolf persona looks, Tony can tell he’s a puppy by the way he flags and turns tail, bounding down the avenue in fright.

“Tony!” Natasha shouts, reminding Tony to fly off, up into the air. It’s too late, though – one of the gorillas grabs his legs, slamming him back down into the ground á la Loki and the Hulk.

Tony blacks out.

He wakes to the strange, familiar smell of home. Air-conditioning swirls around his feet and there’s a strange pressure around his chest. Tony breathes in. No bandages.

“Friday?” Tony surprises himself by croaking her name out.

“Boss,” FRIDAY sound eternally relieved, “you’re awake. I’m informing the others. Lady Loki has kept you in an enchanted sleep while she and the Healer Eir of Asgard healed you.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” Tony rasps, before opening his eyes to a dimly lit room – his bedroom in the penthouse. Everything is where it was, except the pouffe by the window, which has been moved beside his bed, as if someone sat on it. Loki’s clothes, which had been previously strewn over it, are nowhere to be found.