Tony Talks
Tony was hovering over the Tower and looking down at Loki.
“Plan B.”
A second later Jarvis worried voice could be heard.
“Sir, the Mark 7 is not ready to deploy.”
Tony looked around on the HUD and answered:
“Then skip the spinning rims. We’re on the clock.”
He landed on the pad and begun to walk. Robotic arms came out and started to take the suit off of him. He kept eye contact with Loki as he headed inside and Loki turned around to walk into the penthouse.
“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.”
The sarcasm could be heard in his voice. Tony stopped for a second.
“Uh, actually I’m going to threaten you.”
“You should have left your armor on for that.”
He pointed his scepter towards the landing pad. Tony kept going towards the bar as he answered.
“Yeah. It’s seen a bit of ‘mileage’ and you got the ‘glow-stick of destiny’.”
Loki glanced down at the scepter and then back up at Tony. Said man had now gotten behind the bar.
“Would you like a drink?”
Loki smiled at that.
“Stalling me won’t change anything.”
Tony waved his hand but seemed to realize what he was doing and dragged it back quickly. Loki didn’t seem to notice that so Tony said with confidence.
“No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You sure? I’m having one.”
Loki turned towards the window while Tony was getting the glass out.
“The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that.”
He turned back to Tony and asked:
“What have I to fear?”
“The Avengers.”
Tony was going to pour some drink in the glass but paused when he noticed that Loki didn’t understand. He rolled his eyes.
“That’s what we call ourselves. We’re sort of like a team. ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ type thing.”
He finally poured the alcohol in the glass but didn’t pick it up. Loki smiled.
“Yes. I’ve met them.”
Tony smiled back.
“Yeah. Takes us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that one. But let’s do a head count here. Your brother: the demi-god.”
Loki looked away at that and Tony quickly slipped two bracelets on and clicked them shut.
“The super soldier: a living legend, who kind of lives up to the legend. A man with BREATHTAKING anger management issues. A couple of master assassins. And YOU, big fella.”
He pointed at Loki who had smirked at the mention of Bruce.
“You’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”
“That was the plan.”
Tony raised his glass and made a ‘not good’ face.
“Not the great plan.”
He went around the bar and started to walk towards Loki as he continued.
“When they come, and they WILL, they’ll come for you.”
“I have an army.”
But Tony didn’t seem bothered by that as he kept going forward.
“We have a HULK.”
Loki pointed the scepter towards the window.
“I thought the beast had wandered off.”
Now Tony seemed irritated.
“You’re missing the point! There is no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top!”
He stopped next to a small table and continued:
“Maybe your army comes. And maybe it’s too much for us. But it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it!”
He drank the last from the glass and put it on the table as Loki started to advance towards him.
“How will your friends have time for me? When they are so busy fighting you.”
He raised the scepter and tapped it on Tony’s chest. A small CLINK could be heard as it connected with the reactor. Tony’s eyes stayed brown. Loki seemed confused. He tried again with the same results.
“This usually works.”
Tony said in a mocking voice.
“Well, performance issues. It’s not uncommon. One out of five…”
He didn’t get to finish because Loki grabbed him and threw him across the room. He landed on the floor and quickly tried to get up.
“Jarvis. Any time now.”
But as soon as he was somewhat upright Loki grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. Tony grabbed Loki’s wrist as the taller man said:
“You’ll all fall before me.”
Tony managed to get out a strangled:
“Deploy. Deploy.”
Then Loki threw him towards the window. He managed to turn around in the air and spread his arms to the sides with his palms down. Just a second later something bursted out of the elevator and almost knocked Loki down as it flew after Tony. It scanned him and stopped at the bracelets. When it had attached itself onto the bracelets the suit folded out and closed around Tony. He turned around in the last second before he hit the ground and flew back up to a waiting Loki. As he hovered outside the smashed window Tony’s voice could be heard:
“And there is one other person you pissed off! His name is Phil.”
And before Loki could lift his scepter, Tony fired a repulsor blast at him knocking him backwards.
The clip ended and everyone was staring at Tony. Clin was the first one to speak.
“Was that a prototype? You went into a battle in a prototype?”
Tony rolled his eyes.
“It wasn’t tested. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t do the work.”
Next was Bruce who, of course, had seen all the problems with the clip.
“Were you 100% sure it would catch you? I mean really 100%? What if something went wrong? And did you know that the Arc Reactor would stop the Tesseract’s power? Or did you simply hope that Loki wouldn’t try to get you over to his side?”
Tony sighed this time.
“Okey. Listen here Bruce. No, I wasn’t sure that the suit was going to catch me. But by talking to Loki I gave the rest of the team some more time to get there since I couldn’t close the portal when I got there. I was fully aware that if something went wrong I could possibly die. I was ready for that. And no, I didn’t know that the reactor would stop the Tesseract. Of course I had thought of the possibility of that since both the Tesseract and the Arc Reactor are creating their own energy. I figured that it would maybe slow down the effects or maybe make them partial. I didn’t know that it was going to stop it. I had special protocols made on my way to the Tower that said that if Loki would manage to get me over to his side, Jarvis would shoot me. That way I would be useless to Loki. So yes, I was aware of all the risks. But there was a Chitauri invasion going to start and I had to do something to buy the others some time.”
Steve felt bad again. He remembered what he told Tony about the sacrifice play. And when he considered everything Tony had done under the invasion and the way he had saved the Helicarrier even though it was dangerous he had to admit. He had been wrong about Tony Stark. He glanced over to Tony and was surprised to find the man’s blue eyes staring straight at him.
“Tony?”
“Not the one to make sacrifice play right Cap? Never good enough. Because I couldn’t be HIM. I saw it back then on the Helicarrier. How you tried to find him in me. How it irritated you when I refused to be him. I hope you are happy now. Now that you’ve finally got to do what your old friend always said you would. Got to BEAT some sense into me.”
Then he snorted.
“Father dearest would be so proud of you.”
Steve was completely still.
“Howard talked about me?”
Tony’s laugh was ice cold and short enough to not hurt him.
“Talk about you. He never shut up about you. Before he found out it was always: ‘Anthony you should be more like Steve’, ‘I will raise you to be like Steve’, ‘You are so pathetic, why can’t you be more like Steve?’ But that was still quite easy to stand. He didn’t hit me back then. Mom was taking care of me. But then they found out. Mom became scared. Of me. Of him. She stopped being a mother for some time. And he continued. Even worse than before. ‘You are a disgrace to the Stark name freak, I wish Steve was still alive to beat you up’, ‘Steve would hate you you freak’, ‘Don’t try to pretend you can be a hero, you’ll never be Steve’, ‘If Steve was here he’d beat you so good that you would never talk against me’, ‘Freaks like you are not supposed to even be allowed to live, if Steve was here he’d kill you’. And you know what? If Winter hadn’t taken me to Hydra that day, I’m sure that Howard would have killed me. Because I never could be as good as you. And then I met you. And in Berlin I thought: ‘He seems like a nice guy’. Then when we all talked at the Helicarrier and you said that you know that reference I thought that maybe Howard was lying. Then you got back with that gun and confronted Fury and I was in awe. Captain America was the wonderful person aunt Peggy always told me about when she was free from work. And then the argument. And I realized that Howard wasn’t lying. You did hate me. Even though you didn’t even know me really back then. So I told myself: ‘Let’s prove the two of them wrong, once and for all. Whatever the cost may be.’ And I admit that I was ready to die in that portal. But for some odd reason my comm never died. I didn’t have enough air to say anything. I heard Cap tell Widow to close it. And I had my confirmation to what Howard had said. So I accepted it. I accepted that my death was the only thing that could make you happy. Then things got better. You actually talked to me without any insults. For some time I saw aunt Peggy’s Steve. And then I messed up. Again. And Howard’s Steve was back. And I realized that I could never do anything to make you like me for who I was. I lost Jarvis then. I lost a part of my family. Vision was born. Then Pietro died and I could see it in you. You blamed me just as much as Wanda did back then. So I did what I do best. I hid. Then the Sokovia Accords came up and I knew we had to keep at least one hand on the steering wheel. So I signed. And I hoped you all would understand. That if we wanted to change the Accords later we had to agree to them first. Tasha new that. And so did Rhodey and Vision. But you were too stubborn to understand. And by then I knew that Winter was alive. I wanted him to be taken in. I wanted to talk to him. But you wouldn’t let me go anywhere near him. Because I was Tony and I destroyed everything in my path. Winter escaped. You escaped. Sharon told me she would work with you. I let her get away with your stuff. Ross was furious. He wanted you all dead. So I did what I had been thought to do by Howard. I lowered my head and almost begged him to let me speak to you and capture you instead. Ross agreed. Me and Nat got some people together. But so did you. You dragged Clint from his kids and you took Wanda from a place where she was safe. But I was ready to give you one more chance. For aunt Peggy’s sake. I went to Siberia. I tried. I admit that I was blinded when I saw that footage. But it wasn’t really because of mom even if I said it later. It was because Jarvis was in that car too. We fought. And I regretted starting it. But then you were both against me. And I shot blindly. Hit you. Winter got me. When he tried to pull the reactor out I panicked. For a second all I saw was Obie. So I shot. The arm came off. And then you were on me again. And when you lifted the shield all I could think of was how Howard was right. You would be the one to kill me.”
Tony slumped back in his chair and Bucky begun to massage his neck. He was exhausted by the long speech. Everyone else was stunned into silence. Then Wanda reached over and put her hand on his. He looked over to her and she smiled softly. He tried to smile back but he couldn’t. Too many memories crashed down onto him. Bucky’s hand was the only thing that kept him from a panic attack. Then Fury looked over to Steve but before he could say anything Friday spoke up:
“Boss? I hate to interrupt but I have Ross on line. What do you want me to do?”