About gods and engineers

“I highly recommend not to go, sir. The suit is not fully functional yet and I am worried it might not be possible to restore all systems in given time.”
“Thanks, Jarvis, honey, I like you when you care for my wellbeing, but I don´t think I need your input right now. I need some of your invisible automatic fingers to work out and put this damn suit on me.”
“I am sorry, sir. You have to put it on manually. This particular system is one of non-working, sir.”
“Of course it is,” Tony cried out, “or you´re just shitting me to prove your point.”

The AI´s voice cracked like he couldn´t believe Tony could even think something like that. “I would never dare shitting you, sir.”
“Of course,” Tony smirked, securing the breast plate on its post blindly relying only on his fingers and screwdriver to do the job. The whole suit was now still a death weight. For whatever hidden reason he needed to put it all together first and then restart the main system. At least he was able to talk with Jarvis during the whole process, despite his HUD being a black hole as well.
“May I suggest you ask for assistance with the back plate, sir?” The plate, last component – impossible to put in place only by himself, yes, that one. The one he should have thought about first.
“Scan the house, if dad is present.”
“Unfortunately, he is not.”
Tony took a deep breath. “So why are you even asking? Fetch me a mirror instead.”
“I am not sure if you will be able to lift the plate in this angle, sir, with or without a mirror.”

Sure.

Tony just visualized Jarvis´ imaginary body floating above him and pointing his annoyed finger on the far corner of the room. Yeah, assistance, my ass.
“I know what you think about, Jarvis. But I assure you,” he picked up his voice louder, “I would rather break both of my arms, hop on my stomach like a turtle and manage to suit up in this position than require assistance from anyone in this room.”

Because the only person beside him in this room was an asshole, who´d had this need to comment on and insult his life-work every damn hour since Tony had started.
He just needed to think it through. And maybe sit down a bit and then think it through. Or he could wait for Howard to return, but that could be very long and very uncomfortable way how to spend his day…
“However lovely would it be to watch you break your hands,” Loki appeared next to him with his quick mojo-movements causing Tony to jump, “I must object.” His face was unexpectedly clear and there was no hell fire in his eyes, which was ehm, nice. He almost looked well rested, but there was no evidence the god have ever slept since they´d arrived, so Tony could not tell for sure. He himself had had a one of his better nights.

“It may happen that I will need your hands in the not so far future as my locating spell just gave away the place where we need to go,” Loki´s words caught him off guard and he needed to reply them again in his head. In the meantime the god grabbed the missing plate from the ground and was analyzing it closely with his eyes.
“What should I do?” He turned to Tony and Tony had to bit his tongue because Loki really looked like he wanted nothing else but help and maybe finally return to their time. Was there anyone who was he hurrying to meet back home? No, stupid question. Was there any mischief waiting for him and therefore for them all back home?
“Just bring it close to the neck piece, that is the anchor point, all other sides will fit if you push it up where this little empty space is over there, where… ugh… careful… hey…”
Tony closed his eyes and counted to 10. Slowly. “Do you have any problems listening to the end of an explanation?”
“No, if the explanation is needed. What now?”
Tony could feel him behind his back, it was both disturbing and exciting sensation. Was there anything he could stab him with? If yes, would it be more disturbing or more exciting?
“You have to lean into my back and push with all your might.”
For a moment there was no reply.
“Stark, if I push with all my might, you will end up on the other side of this galaxy.”
“Don´t fancy yourself so much.” Tony put his hands on the wall bracing himself for the impact. “Ok, so try to smash it in the place, but don´t smash it through my chest, everything clear?”
“You may want to lock the door before you get us into this position.”

Oh, yes. Nice position. And nice improvement of humor.
“Just do it.”
He felt Loki´s hands finding their place on his back. Tony could swear he felt his touch through several layers of steel. He was ready and glad Jarvis kept his mouth shut.

He took a deep breath and heard something click in a next second.

Loki had pushed the plate into the right direction. And he´d survived. Excellent work.
“Jarvis, restart the system for me, please.”
“I am already on it, sir. It takes 46 seconds until the system is ready.”
“Take your time.”

Five seconds passed and Loki´s hands didn´t move a single inch, which wasn´t weird at all. No. He was just trying to find a right spot where to stab, right? But his fingers kept brushing the steel all the way down to Tony´s lower back and Tony had really no fucking clue how he could know that. Because he was sure as hell he should have not felt it. But he did. And in his peripheral vision he also saw Loki´s concentrated stare, like he could see right through the armor while mapping the curves with the tips.

Tony was hyper-aware that the suit looked good, he designed it after all. The shapes were made to highlight what was nice about one´s body. It was supposed to look strong and solid. The plus was it actually looked hot as well. And somehow it turned them on. Yes, both of them. Shame on you, Stark. One rejection wasn´t enough for you?

It was a real mission impossible to ignore Loki´s close presence.

Fuck. This situation was ridiculous. He had to end it. He was old enough to stop his cock talking when all he heard was “turn and make him regret that morning”.

“Sir, the system is running.”

Oh.

The weight disappeared from his back and he knew that Loki made a step back and maybe was already on his favorite spot like a good bookworm he was. Actually, all the weight was gone, which was nice.
“Report all non-working modes.”
The list went on and on, but Jarvis didn´t mention anything Tony couldn´t live without. The flying was off, but most of the weapons were fully functional.
“I told you, you were exaggerating. We are good to go.”

“I am glad to hear that.” Tony finally turned on his heel and found Loki standing there with unreadable expression. He just realized that the god was dressed in his traditional green-black armor minus the horns, which was a pity. Tony started to like asgardians´s accessories.

Loki didn´t comment on Tony´s eyes scanning him from head to toe, although he might have wanted to.
“We need to go at once. When she will detect the spell, she might change her location,” he explained calmly.
“Mind to share some details? If I usually sleep during the pre-mission meetings, it doesn´t mean I don´t listen at all, you know.”
Loki sighed. It almost seemed like he held a grudge towards this person.
“Her name is Lefer. She is a sorceress like me. We are no longer on good terms, but she isn´t aware of it in this time. I don´t know what she will ask as a price, but we can not lie to her. She is specialized in lies detection.”
“So someone you have to totally hate,” Tony pointed out. His input was happily ignored. Loki pronounced each of his next words very carefully.
“You will be quiet and let me talk and you will do as I tell you. That is my condition.”
“Okay, no problem. Have you met me?”
“I have, Stark. That is the reason why I´m warning you.”
“Okay, I am ready to go. Jarvis, are we ready to go?”
If there was any uncertainty in AI´s voice, it didn´t break through. “We are, sir.”

Tony had let Howard know about the plan the first thing in the morning, right before he fought with him half an hour about why taking anyone with him and Loki would be a bad idea.
“Will you be safe with him?”
Well, if that was “safe” like safe from outside threats, he would say yes. “Safe” from Loki himself? Tony still had a strong feeling that Loki was realizing he needed him because he can´t possibly know what could appear in the future. Clap him on the shoulder for this brilliant word formulation… And after all, Loki was a person who hardly took an interest in something, but he did it with Tony, that much was obvious. Something was telling him that fact won him some points.

Howard had left the house for some important business, but Tony suspected that he´d just hated being around helpless and left out. Whatever the reason was, the old man had still made him take a military transmitter with a built-in locator with him. However, Tony´s experience was clear - if things went to hell, there was usually no time to call for backup. He hadn´t told him that.

So he threw the transmitter into the trunk of the car – because hell, yeah they were really going to use four wheeled vehicle instead of just puffing out of the thin air. And yeah, when Loki had said something like: “don´t expect me to use any magic, when I´m just holding the killer locating spell,” he really was one second from laughing his ass off.

“So…” Tony started nice and smooth after few minutes of silence, when the lack of the cars on the road made the journey look so more boring. He gave his passenger a side look, truly enjoying the strange sight of the god looking as uncomfortable as possible while keeping a neutral face on. No way he could feel worse then Tony in his suit maneuvering around the car´s components.
“Tell me how this magic of yours work.”
“For what reason?” Loki kept staring ahead of him, his features sharp and eyes fully focused. “You want to know how to fight me when we will arrive back in our time?”
Tony couldn´t suppress a groan of irritation.
“No, I want to start a conversation with you.” Then he nodded for himself. “But yeah, few tips could be useful.” His eyes darted towards the rearview mirror in the last second to catch the corner of Loki´s lips go up a little.
“I told you a lot when we were reading the books.”
“But you didn´t tell me what is this thing with your energy and some spells.”
Loki gave him a look like he just said the stupidest sentence ever.
“Don´t expect me to spill out all of my weaknesses only because of your pretty face.”
Tony returned him the quick stare and a smirk. “My pretty face?”

Okay, now Loki really rolled his eyes like he couldn´t believe what just came out of Tony´s mouth.
“You have this habit of picking up the wrong part of sentences, Stark.”
“I have a lot of habits, actually. Like for example I have a tendency to pick apart stuff so I can understand it.” Another side-look.
Loki fell into silence, but then he slowly closed his eyes while he decided to explain: “Spells require different amount of energy. Everything comes with a price.”
“Okay,” Tony pushed on, “what is the worst case scenario, when you overestimate yourself?”
A quick dramatic pause only stressed his next words.
“I die.”
Tony scowled without even thinking about what should be the appropriate reaction of his face muscles, while Loki had to notice, because suddenly he was gazing right at him.

“Did you ever do any spell which took you to the edge?” He mentally sighed. “You don´t have to tell me what it was.”
Loki pursed his lips into a thin line. “Yes.”
Okay. Okay…. Okay… No he had to ask. “What it was?”
Again there was this half smile quickly running through his lips and disappearing into the stoic mask. It still warmed Tony up.
“I saved Thor´s life,” Loki surprised him with his answer, “and it almost cost me mine.” His eyes wandered to the side window and to the trees they were passing.
“The healing spells are one of the most difficult ones. I was young and after that one time mother never allowed me to study this part of the sorcery any further and later I lost the interest.”
Tony didn´t quite understand. “Wasn´t she happy you could save your brother? I mean – healing, it can be a very useful skill, mostly with you two doing a lot of fighting.”
“It is indeed. But she knew that I could not recognize the costs of those spells or worse I would choose to ignore the danger. In many cases with these kind of spells I would not save the person and I would not even save myself. She was right to do it.”

So this was a kind of information Tony didn´t know what to do with. Loki just admitted that there was a time in his long existence when he´d been ready to give his life for the life of his brother and that wasn´t something Tony associated with the god easily. And maybe for the first time he tried to imagine a whole different world where those two could stand side by side and rule Asgard together. Thor´s good heart plus Loki´s great brain. Excellent combination. He could almost see how this scenario could have led Loki towards a whole different path.
“But you healed my hand,” Tony shove it into the air to hover a little before he grabbed the wheel again, “I know you did. It feels alright. Even the scar from that stupid glass is gone.” Loki set his eyes on the road ahead, ignoring the fact that Tony was very clearly starring at him.
“A petty trick.”
“You said you won´t heal it, because of the tracking spell, but you did it anyway.” Yeah, absolutely no self-preservation. Welcome into the life of Tony Stark.

There was a few seconds pause which felt like a hundred years until Loki decided to give him an answer, but hey, it was a bullshit all the same, because when he said he´d underestimated himself that was a very obvious lie. Loki don´t do underestimating.
“Well, whatever you say,” Tony inwardly agreed to let it go for now, because he was thankful and in the moment, that was maybe more than being curious.

They kept on the road for another hour or so. All woods and no cars. It felt like they were heading for the end of the world. And in the meantime Tony started babbling like he always does, when he feels uncomfortable in the silence. And Loki might have not participated actively, but he was listening and sometimes when Tony said something amusing, he caught the glimpse of his rare half smiles. They appeared more frequently now and Tony learned to enjoy them, even more when he was the cause of them. If there was any alarm ringing in his head the whole time, he chose to pretend he didn´t hear it.

“Turn right, we will leave the car here,” Loki spilled the order with neutral tone and it took some time until Tony reacted.
They were here.
He parked the car at the side of the road right in front of the path leading between the trees and into the forest. It was something he wouldn´t normally noticed while driving around, maybe not even while walking, but it wasn´t impossible to find.
“Is it this easy to find a sorcerer in the good old times?”
Loki just hummed something incoherent and passed by Tony clearly expecting he would follow. And he did. Only a moment later he learned that it was not so easy at all. Because obviously if you were only a human you would normally had no powers to curl your fingers in the air, do an abracadabra and end up in the same spot with same surroundings, but somehow everything was different. Tony was sure that it wasn´t the same forest they´d walked in even when he couldn´t pickpoint a single difference.

“Okay, scary as hell, but I will just play along like we are still on Earth and hope we are still on Earth and no, I don´t want to hear it if we are not.” Loki was about to take a lead again when he went stiff in the middle of the step and looked back, holding his gaze for a moment.
“You did feel the transition.” It wasn´t meant to be a question.
Tony faked a sharp inhalation.
“Don´t tell me I´m becoming Harry Potter. I hate owls.”
“You shouldn´t have felt anything,” Loki stated firmly. He frowned, but turned fast enough not to leave a place for anymore pop culture reference or actual questions.

Tony was about to start talking anyway, until he realized something utterly horrible and went for a curse instead of words.
“Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Why didn’t you remind me to take a helmet with me?”
There was a small awkward pause during which Loki abruptly stopped once more and gave him a seriously pissed look.
“You must be joking, Stark.”
“I am sorry, sir, but I was trying to do so, you just weren´t paying attention.” How lucky he was there were at least still microphones built also in other places beside the helmet, because he had this feeling Loki won´t be talking to him anymore.
“Next time, please remind me more forcefully, Jarvis. I am used to have it attached to the rest, you know…”
“Yes, sir.”
And Loki was maybe calling him names or maybe not, hard to tell when he spoke some different language and there was no translating spell now, but at least he waited for Tony to catch up with him. They walked for another 15 minutes or so before he felt it again. A strange unexplainable feeling – magic happening somewhere nearby. And Loki told him to close his eyes.

Tony obeyed, because hell if he knew if he wanted to see what was about to happen. When he started to blink furiously a moment later, they were still on the same spot just as before, but this time there were people hovering on the ground in front of them. A woman, in the center was lying on some kind of a wooden platform with bowls of fruit and food around. She was leaning on her elbow and watching them with sparkling eyes like she was awaiting them. A man on her right was playing with a curl of her brown hair, not paying attention to the unexpected visitors until she snapped him out of his dreamy world with her fingers. He straightened just as her, so they were both more sitting than lying down.

Tony started to focus on the soft sound coming out of her red lips and he happily realized she was speaking English, surely on his behalf. But that was disturbing, right? She knew she had to speak English around him. Or maybe she was an American citizen, wouldn´t be the strangest thing in Tony´s life. He sent a glance towards Loki´s face, but there was nothing alarming mirroring there.

“My prince, what a pleasure to meet you here,” she spoke to Loki directly and waved her hand as a gesture for the man next to her to stand up and leave. After that her eyes set on Tony.
“Mind to introduce a guest you brought with you.”
Loki spoke his name without any emotion. Not Stark like “you are annoying as hell” or “Stark, you damn idiot” and he got this impression that this was really serious, and Loki was cautious for a good reason.
The woman – Lefer, watched him closely and gave him a malicious smile.
“Tell me, Anthony,” she purred with low seducing voice, while making few small steps in their direction “why are you here?”
And in that question there was maybe more then it seemed. Because he was there in the wrong time, where he did not belong and he was there, in the magic forest, where he clearly didn´t belong either, but he was also there in front of her, because he needed something.
Loki politely cleared his throat and usurped her attention back on himself.
“We need a device to store the magic energy.”
She pressed her lips together. “For?”
“For time traveling.”

Lefer laughed quickly like she´s just heard a great joke.
“Even with that device you wouldn´t have enough. You know it is a forbidden territory, Loki. You are not strong enough. You lack the knowledge. You…” she suddenly stopped in the middle of the sentence, her eyes widening. “You already did it.”
He nodded.
“How?”
“I don´t know.”
Well, they knew at least something. They didn´t mean to time travel. Loki had explained it that first day very clearly. He´d wanted to teleport, Tony had wanted him to stay. Tony´s central system had gone crazy and took them in this mess. But now it looked like that wasn´t all what had happened.

Lefer shook her head. “It´s not possible. You have to know. Time traveling is rare, Loki. Even if you study for hundreds and hundreds of years, you don´t have to be successful. Even your mother don´t know how to use this king of magic.”
Tony looked for a hint of anger on Loki´s face. The one which appeared almost always when somebody mentioned Thor when Loki didn´t expect it. But it wasn´t there now. Surprisingly, he looked puzzled.
“I had an extra power source, which I won´t have this time,” he continued after a while and Tony realized he was talking about him, about his arc reactor, about his suit which was completely roasted when they´d landed.
“The extra source is a tool, not ability. You said you don´t know how you did it, so how do you plan to take you both back? Because I assume you took this man with you.”
“He did,” Tony finally spoke out, forgetting on the “stay quiet” deal immediately, “but that was kinda my fault too.”
“It was?” she asked obviously not fully decided if she wanted to be curious, astonished or both.
Loki cut in before Tony could think of any smart reply.
“It was a simple relocating spell to take me to the safety. Stark inserted his own direction. We ended up here.”

Lefer gave him a disapproving look. “That is not all, but I believe you. I believe you do not understand how strong you are and what you are capable of. Because things like this don´t happen naturally. Magic doesn´t happen by accident.”

Okay. So that was a one more reason why Tony should have felt worried. But instead he felt a spark of hope.
“So is there any way how to get us back?” he asked, earning a subdued growl from the god beside him. “Whatever, ask her yourself if you want, yeeez.”
And from all possible reaction the sorceress smiled warmly, amused and that was nothing Tony expected.
“I know how. In theory. I could tell you. I could even lend you something you will store the energy in.” His cat eyes found Tony´s. She moved a little forward too fast for him to move out of reach and her long fingernails clapped on the center of his armor. Right at the reactor. “I guess you do not want to use this again and risk his life.” And Tony flinched so hard that he had to take a step back to prevent himself from falling down on his ass. His heart had to skip few beats because hell, no one was touching his reactor without permission with or without a fucking suit.

Loki had to be aware of the reason for his reaction, because suddenly he was right next to him and his shoulder was protectively extended to his front. It wasn´t like he was standing in front of him, but it was close enough to give a warning. The sorceress wasn´t going to touch him again.
“But I want something in return.”
“Name it,” Loki spat out and if it was hostile, they all pretended it wasn´t the result of the recent events.

Lefer moved on her original spot, thoughtful. “You won´t like it.”