Chapter 2
It was only his third scotch that night. Or fourth. Something like that.
Tony studied the amber liquid, swirling his glass and then watching as the legs dripped slowly down the side of the glass. This bottle was older than he was, and nowadays, that meant something.
He cracked his neck, rolling his head to one side. It was late; outside, the city stretched into the darkness, a plethora of light and dark and bright lights and noises even he could make out this high up in the penthouse, through his (now reinforced) glass cage.
Stark sighed. As years went, he supposed it wasn’t his worst birthday. After all, he was still alive, having survived palladium poisoning, an alien invasion, a crazy witch chick messing with his head, accidentally creating an evil artificial robot overlord while trying to save the earth, then literally, you know, saving the earth, then finding out that his friend, his friend, had hidden the truth, had sided with a murderer over him…. and now…. And now Rhodey would walk with Stark’s newest proprietary tech. Forever.
He raised his glass, checking his watch. Past midnight now. Stark smirked, muttering in a sing-song voice, “Happy birthday to me.”
“Yes, happy birthday, indeed” a deep voice echoed, near the balcony.
Tony chuckled, lifting his scotch to his lips again. “Of course.”
“You don’t seem surprised,” the voice said, before Loki emerged from the shadows. His face was sharper than Stark remembered, with greasy-black hair to his shoulders, but the fitted black suit was new, nicely tailored to the taller man’s form. It tucked and tightened in all the right places, accentuating the god’s slim figure.
Stark hummed appreciatively. “Either I’m dead anyway and seeing ghosts, or Wanda’s back looking for something on Steve’s orders, or this here,” he held up his glass, squinting at Loki’s figure through the amber liquid, distorted, “This is really, really good scotch and I’ve had a few more than four tipples.” He shrugged, leaning back against the couch. “So get the fuck outta my head, Wanda.”
“I’m not Wanda.”
“The hell you aren’t,” Stark grumbled. “No one else can get into the tower, and Loki’s dead.”
“I assure you, the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Loki grinned, plucking the extended tumbler from Stark’s grasp. “Now, about that drink you owe me."
Stark blinked, suddenly lurching to his feet. “Shit. Shit!” he cursed, stumbling backwards. His bands weren’t—the suit—it was— “Friday!”
Loki raised one elegant eyebrow, before taking a sip of the scotch. “Hmm,” he sniffed the liquid. “Now that’s more like it.”
“Loki!” Stark positioned himself behind the bar, fingers fluttering over the bottle opener, then a cork, before finally palming a cork screw. “What are you doing here?”
“Having a drink,” Loki deadpanned, lifting the glass. “And from the sound of it, celebrating your birthday, are we not?”
“Uh,” Stark looked around; the room was dark, and suddenly he felt very, very small. Friday hadn’t answered, either. “No. We are definitely not celebrating my birthday. You—You, for one thing, are dead.”
Loki grinned, all teeth. “Oh, yes,” he dropped the empty tumbler onto the bar, leaning towards Stark. “Thor does believe me to be in Niffleheim—or Hel, I suppose.” Loki shuddered. “That was rather convenient.”
Tony shifted the corkscrew to his other hand, the pointy part aimed forward like a dagger.
“But as you can see, Stark ” Loki gestured, palms upward, “I’m not dead. And here we are again, you and I,” he taunted. “Where are your Avengers, now?”
Stark chuckled, suddenly, before taking a step back. His chuckle grew and grew, until a laugh stuck against his ribs, brittle and bruising, and the center of his sternum ached as it spilled forth, exploding into a full blown guffaw as his legs gave way as his back hit the wall.
The corkscrew clattered to the floor.
“Stark?” he heard Loki say, but Tony curled his arms around his center in a futile effort to stop the painful wheeze of his laughter, the way each shuddering chortle hurt, physically hurt in his efforts to rein it in.
“Sorry,” he wheezed. “When you—” he laughed again, “Where are my Avengers? My Avengers? I can’t— I can’t, even—”
“I don’t understand,” Loki growled, stepping around the bar, “why this is amusing to you.”
“Because,” Tony wiped his eyes, his shoulders shaking with suppressed humor. “Because they’re not mine, clearly. I mean, I’m drinking alone on my birthday, hallucinating about dead aliens. Surely—” Stark chuckled again. “I mean, that’s a little funny.”
“I’m not a hallucination,” Loki scoffed, pouring himself another drink. He tipped the last bit of the bottle into a glass.
“Uh huh, sure,” Stark wheezed, finally calming down. “If you are real, what do you want? Why are you here?”
“I need a favor,” Loki didn’t smile this time, and for some reason that made Stark nervous. “I need your assistance.”
“Uh, no.” Stark palmed the corkscrew again, from where it had fallen beside his leg. “I’m out of the superhero business, and I don’t help maniac alien invader hallucinations on my birthday.”
“Oh come now,” Loki’s cheek twitched, but the twinkle was gone from his eyes. “Not even to save Midgard one more time?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Stark shoved back against the wall, edging himself upward. Maybe it had been a few more than four scotches, earlier. The bottle was empty, after all.
“What if I told you,” Loki’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet, odd enough that Tony found himself studying the man’s face, as the taller man cleared his throat, and continued, “What if I told you, that I never wanted to rule your planet in the first place?”
“What?” Stark crossed his arms. “I’m supposed to believe you were just having a temper tantrum, of epic proportions, and decided the Earth was a good place for a hissy fit? Good one, Loki, tell me another.”
“If you must know, Stark, I wasn’t—I didn’t—” Loki finished his drink in one, swift gulp, setting the glass on the marble counter. His hands moved like he didn’t know what to do with them, without a drink to hold, and Stark watched as the dark-haired man shifted uncharacteristically from side to side. “Surely you have something stronger than this…” Loki held up the bottle he’d finished. “What was this?"
“Scotch,” Stark scowled. “Damned good scotch, too. And you drank it all. If you wanted antifreeze, you can try the vodka in the blue bottle over there, on the rocks.”
“Why would I put rocks in my drink?” Loki reached for the bottle, as Stark sidestepped around the god’s outstretched arm and nicked it instead.
“Allow me, Mister Tall, Dark, and Scary,” Tony poured three fingers into a fresh glass over a few cubes of ice, and garnished with lime and a splash of soda water. “Since I owe you a drink anyway.” Stark slid the drink along the bar, stepping sideways again until he rounded the bar. “Now, you were going to tell me about why you didn’t want to be king, is that it? I’m all ears, Loki.”
“I was—” Loki took a sip, grimacing, before he took a bigger swallow. “I was working for someone. His name is Thanos,” Loki spat the word out like it had bit him, “The Chitauri are his. And he’s going to come back for Midgard, unless you help me.”
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, letting his eyes close as his gut clenched in the all too familiar feeling sickening clench of fear in his stomach at the mention of the Chitauri, remembering their forces on the other side of that wormhole, remembered falling— “And you expect me to believe you? To trust you?”
“Yes,” Loki said simply. “And in return, I will make sure your world is safe—that Midgard no longer stands in the way of the Mad Titan’s ambitions.” The taller man finished his drink in one swallow, before neatly placing it on the counter. “Thanks for the drink, Stark.”
Tony blinked, glancing around the empty penthouse. He paced back around the bar, picking up the abandoned glass and sniffing at its contents. It smelled of lime and soda water, and was cold in his grasp from the ice.
It was real, after all.
“Fuck,” Stark muttered, tossing the ice down the drain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Uh huh,” Coulson leaned back in his chair.
Tony shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Call Steve? Oh, wait...”
“So what did you do?” the Asian-looking chick Coulson had brought along chimed in, Mai or May or something.
Stark tapped his knuckles on the conference table. “Had another drink”
“Only one more?” Loki asked, amused.
“Shut up,” Tony replied without missing a beat. “Then I went to bed. Double checked that Wanda wasn’t anywhere nearby, from Friday’s energy scans, first.”
“Really?” Loki’s voice was intrigued. “You’ve developed a technique to scan for her energy signature?”
Tony winked. “Don’t worry Snowflake, it doesn’t work on your mumbo jumbo.”
“Pity,” Coulson chimed in.
He woke on the lounge sofa the next day with a splitting headache, to the sounds of someone banging around in the kitchen. Groaning, Stark sat up, then blinked as his brain slowly caught up with what his eyes could see.
There, wearing decidedly more casual clothing than the night before, was Loki. Cooking. In his kitchen. Stark rubbed his forehead. “Friday, did I drink any absinthe last night?”
“Nay, yeh did not,” the brogue voice chimed, “Shall I order yeh some?”
“No,” Tony grumbled, rubbing his forehead. “Friday, are you registering anyone else in the Penthouse?”
“Just us birds, Sir.”
Tony moaned, as his stomach lurched. He stumbled to his feet, hurdling towards the toilet around the corner, barely skidding to a stop before the porcelain god before his insides seized. “Oh hell,” he grumbled, resting his forearm on the seat. He felt hot and cold at once, and like his brain was clawing its way out of his skull, as his stomach threatened to rebel again.
A cool hand nudged his shoulder. “Drink this.”
“No, you—you—doorknob!”
“Stark—”
Tony groaned, leaning forward to be sick again. “Just kill me already.”
“Yes let’s do so,” Loki hissed. “It’d certainly be easier.”
“What do you want?” Stark spat into the toilet, before waving his hand over the sensor to flush.
“I told you last night, I need your assistance.”
“Right,” Tony coughed, his throat raw. “And I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.”
“I have no interest in buying any portion of Midgard.”
“It’s a saying, Lokes—”
“Lokes?!”’ Loki scoffed.
“Whatever,” Tony shrugged, feeling his stomach lurch again. “Gimme your poison.”
“I assure you, it’s not poison,” the taller man spat, thrusting a glass of green-black liquid into Stark’s hands. The smell alone made the mortal’s eyes water.
“Ugh, I take it back, I’m not drinking this,” Tony shoved the glass towards Loki, but the man moved a step back.
“Drink it, Stark!”
“It smells worse than my barf,” Tony protested. “Can’t you just throw me out a window again?”
“Tempting,” Loki grinned. “Drink it or I’ll make you.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. “I don’t trust you.”
“I know.”
“So why would I drink this?” he gestured to the mixture; for a moment he thought it had even gurgled back at him.
“A thousand years of looking after Thor and you think I haven’t perfected a hangover remedy?” Loki raised one elegant eyebrow in a perfectly formed expression that Stark knew meant he was an idiot.
“Fuck,” Tony hissed between his teeth. “If this makes me grow antlers, I will seriously injure you.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Loki glowered, before turning to go.
Tony pinched his nose, biting back another wave of nausea as he lifted the glass to his lips, considering. On one hand, Loki, Tony grimaced. On the other hand, hangover cure. And really now, if the other man had intended to injure him, to take over the penthouse or the armor or whatever, couldn’t he have done so while Tony was asleep? And then there was the whole ‘Friday can’t sense the guy at all’ thing going on, which was really, really strange because Jarvis could tell Loki was in the penthouse, and Friday was— was—
“Next Gen Tech,” Tony whispered. “Fuck it.”
He drank.