Threats
Both of them were staying in the same room. A one with a big place for a king bed, which was the only piece of furniture interesting for Tony in his current state. Even when it wasn´t pleasant – to occupy the same living space with a mad villain, it was the safest way how to stay… well, safe… However clever it originally sounded in Tony´s head, lying in the soft sheets and pillows, out of the shower and dressed in new clothes, he found it pretty hard to remember what was the purpose of this roommate thing. And that was of course to have some control over Loki.
Sure, taking a rest and at the same time not completely slip away in his presence was enough hard task to do unnoticed. The tension could be cut above their heads into salad.
“Are you afraid I might slit your throat while sleeping?” Despite that Tony expected him to say something by any minute, the question still left him feel like he was expecting just that. From his position it was impossible to tell what was the god doing. He could be as good as sharpening his knife.
“Yes,” he decided not to bother with lies, “or squeeze a toothpaste on my face.”
He heard him made a disapproving sound.
“Do you really think that I would do such a stupid thing as to kill you in your father´s house, when I´m together with you imprisoned in this time you brought us in?”
Well, this was finally something Tony was interested in.
“Me?” he asked faking to be touched, “What did I do?”
“Oh, how typical…” Loki groaned maybe with anger maybe with frustration. “You Midgardians know nothing.” He seemed to be extremely bored by the idea of explaining something he considered trivial and kind of “everyone should know” to anyone and perhaps mostly to Tony Stark.
“The spell should have taken me to place I had in my mind. But as you connected to me, the energy was thrown off balance. It should have stopped your heart instantly…”
Tony looked at the stable reactor in the middle of his chest from high placed pillow.
“But you don´t die so easily as I see. Instead you received a shock.”
The dark passion in his words reminded Tony of himself, when he talked about his tech toys.
- Yes, it´s perfectly safe… No… It happened only once and I had an extinguisher… -
He waited patiently until Loki started talking again, trying to ignore mentions of his expected death between the lines.
“It had to be a few seconds of a really strong pain. You might not even remember it. But in that very moment, when you probably thought you were dying, your mind overpowered mine.”
“So…” Tony was sure he´s going to regret what he was about to say, “you´re admitting that I beat you in some strange psychological way?”
“What I´m admitting is that you got us into this mess, Stark.”
“And I did it willingly and with a certain purpose, yeah, and from all the hot places with a lot of alcohol and women I brought us right here, because this is my favorite time and place…” It was already too late, when he realized his mistake.
He saw Loki getting to his feet and approaching the bed slowly.
“Why not?” he asked. “When we are at the edge of dying we think about safe and happy memories.”
Tony leaned up on his elbows. “No offense, but I´m not going to talk about my safe or unsafe memories with a madman like you.”
Even before his last word echoed in the room, there was suddenly an ornamented dagger appearing in Loki´s hand and shoved into the way of Tony´s face – still not too close to his exposed neck, but as well not too far to accidently slip from the god´s fingers blade down.
Where did he even get it?
“If I was you, I would choose my words more wisely. I said I won´t kill you because you´ll serve me better alive for now. I may, of course, change my mind.”
Tony sighed not letting any inappropriate emotion to show up on his face.
“And I didn´t even started. But ok, Reindeer. I see you are a little stressed right now. Let´s make an alliance. You shove that dagger to your ass and I won´t tell anyone what a murderous psychopath you are, eh?”
Tony made it sound good enough, so Loki wouldn´t see he used almost the same insulting words as before. That´s how the politics is made, friends…
The trickster however kept starring at him, not deadly but curious.
“It is not only about me, am I right? You don´t sleep because you don´t trust…”
“My father?” Tony ended the sentence, thinking he maybe underestimated Loki´s skills to acclimatize fast enough. He sat up on the bed. Slowly. He needed a drink.
“I have a right to know if we are in a danger, Stark.”
He was weaker then he let know. From where Tony stood he could see it and he decided to be serious and a little bit of cooperative. After all Loki helped him to get out of that suit and added some extra stuff, which was far better than any drug Tony ever had. He didn´t need to do the last part, but he did.
“I don´t know. I remember him as man full of greed.” He stumbled as he tried to move past the bed to the small kitchen.
“And I left half of my suit there,” he mumbled looking for a bottle and glass to fill.
“Maybe if you wouldn´t be so weak and pathetic…”
“Yes, yes… I hear you…” Jesus, it was like an old song always repeating.
He was right in the process of getting the drink to his dry mouth, when his eyes fixed on the shadow moving through the room like a ghost. His brain was still too slow to come with some decent reason why Loki was breathing to his face in the next moment and how the hell he got there so quickly.
“I apologize, but I won´t take any risk, I will find for myself. Take a deep breath.”
“What?”
The touch of Loki´s cold hands on both sides of his face didn´t really hurt. No. Actually it sent some relaxing shivering through his body reminding him of some good rock music. It was good before it was bad.
Maybe because of the sudden change he felt even more betrayed and fooled. Maybe because he didn´t know this feeling of pure sensation will be drastically torn away from him in a few seconds time.
If he knew he would prepare for the striking pain coming afterwards he would tighten his grip around the glass in his hand so it won´t shatter against the floor. Hell, he would do anything to manage the horror coming next.
Tony felt his mind, which was the best thing of him, being invaded and violated by the god´s magic. He saw him searching for information in his memories, breaking his privacy and every wall he built there, taking everything he wanted and leaving a desolation behind. It was impossible to move or do anything and he was surprised, when he realized he could at least scream, when the pain became unbearable.
His whole body was shaking, but he couldn´t fight against the spell. He had that pure look of horror written on his face, even when Loki let him go. He found Loki´s face and what he saw there made the anger even bigger and more devastating.
Tony wasn´t really thinking about what he was doing. In one moment his fist suddenly hurt and his other hand was holding Loki on the floor, using an armor to get the needed strength – maybe not so needed after Loki visibly exhausted himself to the bottom.
He didn´t move. Not a single muscle. And Tony had to think why until he looked down and saw a broken glass in his bleeding palm - still not too close to Loki´s exposed neck, but as well not too far to slip accidently from Iron Man´s fingers.
***
“It´s him.” Frank moved away from one of the Howard´s computers with undefined expression on his face. “I can´t really believe this.”
“You better do.” Howard trusted Frank enough not to check the DNA results for himself.
“How they even got here? Jesus, this is big, Howard. This is bigger than us. Shouldn´t we…”
“No.”
He knew what he was trying to suggest and he also knew it wasn´t possible. “No police, no government, no other people, this have to stay here.” He was sure he would act this way even when it wasn´t about his son. Now he had just a one more reason to block the whole thing at least until he´ll have more information.
“I know I can´t hold you in this house against your will or your boys. If you want to walk away I will understand, but I would like you to stay here by my side. You don´t have to meet them again.” Was he really willing to let them go just like that? He hasn´t been ever put in front of such a choice.
“No way I won´t let you here alone. It´s true that sometimes I can´t stand you, but you´re still my best friend.”
Howard wanted to thank him from the bottom of his heart and mostly for being this…
There was a scream echoing through the house.
Both men looked at each other alarmed and standing up in the same moment. There wasn´t enough time to express their thoughts as the series of strange noises followed soon after.
“What the hell?”
Frank didn´t call for his men and that was maybe a mistake, but Howard realized it too late – right when he entered the room, where the two bodies were lying on the floor around shattered glass with his son gripping a one piece next to the other man´s throat.
Somewhere in his peripheral vision he saw Frank pulling out his gun. Howard hissed at him: “don´t point that at him.” But who should he point it at? It was obvious who was in danger here.
“Tony,” he addressed his boy calmly, dragging him out of whatever place he was in his head looking like he didn´t even know someone else was here with him till now. He breathed heavily and his eyes were a little red when he looked back at Howard, but then he let the glass fell of his hand without explaining anything.
Still he didn´t let go of the man – Loki completely. Instead Howard watched him reaching up for his legs armor – which was probably still working – and in the next second he witnessed this very armor being moved on Loki´s feet, where it built itself up around his legs. There was nothing manual on the process, it looked like the suit had a head on its own and could do tasks with elegance and without outside help - clearly an incredible invention.
The bottom part lit up a little when it met with the ground and it seemed like it got stick to it. Tony got back on his feet and his intention was now obvious. He let the man stuck on the place in the position from which he wasn´t able to reach for armor and everyone in the room seemed to get it at the same time.
“Try to damage it in any way and I swear I´ll let it blow up half of your body.”
The man didn´t look like he was about to put a fight, in fact he looked worse than Tony few hours ago.
“How do you want to get back without me?”
Tony smiled, but it looked cruel. “Don´t worry, in the worse case I´ll build a fucking time-machine.”
Howard waited till he approached them and looked at Frank first. “Can you stay here with him? I need some air. You better put some music on and ignore whatever he´s saying, he´ll probably try some tricks.”
“Yeah, sure.” He eyed Howard for a confirmation. He got it.
“Come.”
***
The two of them left the room and moved along the hall to the kitchen right to the big wooden table placed in the middle. Tony sat down, while Howard stayed on the spot near the sink. The awkward silence was cut be his father´s voice before he could make up something clever to say by himself.
“You drink coffee?”
Tony tilted his head to the side with a smirk. “Do you really want to ask exactly this? I´m sitting in our old kitchen being as old as you with a robotic arm and crazy god locked in part of my suit.”
The thing he saw in Howard´s face wasn´t politeness. Maybe curiosity.
“It seems you know a lot of things about me.” He surely didn´t expect answer for that, so Tony didn´t give him one. “Who is that man you´ve just tried to kill?”
“First thing,” Tony had to defend himself, “I wasn´t really trying to kill him. Despite what I said, it would cost me a lot of time to build a time machine with limited resources, no offense. And he isn´t such an easy kill, trust me.”
Tony remembered his bleeding palm just as he remembered where the first aid kit used to be in this room.
“Let me help you.”
Howard reached for his hand, but Tony reflexively pulled back. Whether it was a reaction to his father or new surroundings, he wasn´t sure.
“Sorry. I don´t like being touched, when I don´t expect it.” Tony wasn´t nursing himself for the first time. Howard nodded understandingly when he saw his assistance wasn´t really needed.
Tony didn´t mind his other hand being in armor – he felt better that way when he kept at least this part close to him.
“Back to your question. That man,” he tried to overcome the sick feeling as he recalled the episode back with Loki, “is quite villain in my time.” He thought about how much he could reveal. “He comes from Asgard and is considered a god in north mythology as you probably know. He has also special powers mostly playing with your head and illusions.”
“So you want to tell me that Asgard, Odin, Loki… they are all real in your time? Walking on Earth?” Howard frowned fitting his hands into the pockets of his jeans. It was his familiar pose when he tried to imagine something big which shouldn´t be possible. “Is he dangerous?”
“Yes,” Tony didn´t lie, “but he is weak now. It was his spell bringing us here. Well, with my little help.” It was obvious that Howard tried to formulate his questions carefully understanding the danger of changing the future with mere words.
“Did you want to come here?”
Tony laughed. “No, of course not.” He realized how harsh it sounded. “Now we have to work out the way how to get us back home. I think Loki just needs to gather his pixie dust.”
“Aren´t you enemies? Will he take you with him?”
That was a good question. Tony knew one way how to buy his ticket. “I´ll deal with him.” Then something silly and childish came up to his mind. “could I see my room?” It was much safer than talking after all.
Howard took him there without any objections. He seemed like he also needed time to think things through. For Tony it felt nostalgic to look around and find his old childhood stuff, his first inventions and projects he was working at. He got a glimpse of a fairy-tale book left on the bedside table and all he could suddenly see was a gentle hand of his mother putting him to sleep.
“Is mom alright?” Innocent question.
“Yes, I sent her away, but you can see her if you want.”
Tony thought about the idea. “No. Not now.”
He wasn´t trusting himself to the point he wouldn´t try to save his mom if he once would see her. Don´t go. Don´t sit in that damn car. Those could be very dangerous sentences escaping his mouth.
His eyes finally wandered towards the wall full of Captain America posters. He recalled one night when all of them lied ripped to pieces by his feet. When he looked back, Tony saw his father gazing that way too.
“Is he…” he started, but Tony didn´t let him finish, when he laughed coldly.
“How typical. You won´t ask about me or the firm, but him.” It will always be him first, right?