So, Lady Charity put a prompt out about Loki collapsing for reasons, and once again I decided to roll with it. So have another angsty Loki one-shot, from Tony's perspective. All the joy. Or angst. Whatever.

Tony arrived on the scene first, because it didn't matter if the Quintjet could defy logic in relation to travel time and distance, his suit would always be faster. (He was wholly a fan of science and logic, except when things started telling him what he could and could not do. Things like logic, for example. Or statistics. Or, occasionally, elementary physics.)

Despite the fact that his Mark 06 was in such a state that it probably warranted a proper funeral, he had arrived in record time.

The good news? He hadn't been wrong.

The bad news? He hadn't been wrong.

How Rudolf had slipped an entire operation, including, but not limited to, some academy award winning special effects, a blue cube capable of spewing death and radiation, a missing astrophysicist, and a demigod who looked like he'd escaped out of a Christmas special gone wrong.

Except not. One piece was missing. A particularly tall one with a fondness for gold and leather and ridiculous helmets.

He didn't like it.

"Get the Mark 07 ready for deployment," he instructed. JARVIS replied, a bit unnecessarily, that Mark 07 was still a prototype, because he knew this. He really did. But right now, the odds of his rockets failing were higher than the prototype exploding midair. JARVIS knew this as well, curbing his tendency towards cynical sarcasm long enough for Tony to land and remove his defunct armor.

Silently, he stepped into his own living room, expecting at any moment to be jumped or speared or something. Nothing happened.

'Sir, I would suggest you inspect the lounge area.' JARVIS's voice had a note of…well, Tony would have called it confusion, if JARVIS was capable of confusion. Cautiously, he followed the words of his AI, only to come face-to-face with the god of mischief and mayhem himself.

Except not face-to-face, because instead of standing in his full armor, spouting all sorts of nonsense like he should be, the demigod was lying on the ground, looking to all the world as though he had collapsed.

And really, this wasn't fair, because by now Tony Stark had faced bad guys. And this wasn't what bad guys were supposed to do. They weren't supposed to be lying unconscious in his living room like they'd been mugged, looking pale and sweaty and really quite sick now that he got lose enough to look. He stopped himself from approaching at the realization that this was the god of lies he was dealing with, and playing dead was most likely in his deck.

For a moment he wavered on what to do next. Usually he was the one collapsed (usually do to a hangover or too many nights without sleep), and he was never quite conscious to see what Pepper did to scrape his sorry ass off the floor and into the correct bed. And then the image of vintage trading cards, smeared in blood, came unbidden to his mind, bringing with it a rush of fury that burned like fire through his veins.

And just like that, his eyes were drawn to the glint of the staff, its ethereal blue light twinkling at him ominously. A sort-of plan started to form in Tony's mind, and he reached out to grab hold of the staff, expecting Loki to pounce at any second.

Instead, as his hand met the smooth, gleaming metal a sensation like the unholy offspring of fire and ice spread from his palm up through his unprotected arm. With a soundless scream, he pitched forward, and was suddenly falling into darkness.

Far above him, he could see the shattered edge of his tower, receding into the distance. And then the tower shimmered and morphed into something different altogether. It was nothing he had ever seen before, but somewhere at the edge of his mind the word bifrost drifted past, and he grabbed hold of it. The shattered fragments of the rainbow bridge fell with him in his descent, and two figures watched, one dangling precariously, screaming his name.

"Loki!"

Except that was wrong, wasn't it. He wasn't Loki, was he? He couldn't remember, because as he fell among the stars, shattered pieces of two minds flowed by him. Sometimes he could remember waking up in a dark cave, a car battery pinned to his chest. He could remember Pepper and Rhodey, Yinseng and Obie. Don't waste your life.

Other times, he could remember golden halls and a golden father and a golden brother. He remembered the dark and the cold, monsters of ice and snow, a ruined coronation. No Loki.

And other times, he remembered nothing at all. Nothing but a void that had swallowed him up, leaving him to drift forever without past, present, or future.

And then things shift and blur, and he's lying against the cold, hard ground of a world steeped in darkness. Starlight twinkled above, cold and faint, just bright enough to reveal the hideous faces that leered at him. The faces shifted, from one reptilian monstrosity to another, until at last they settled on a creature that, had it not been so close and so absolutely horrifying, he would have called a Star Wars knockoff.

There was blood on the ground now. His blood. Some distant part of his brain told him that there was pain too, searing every nerve in his body until he lay paralyzed on the hard ground. But the face didn't move, instead continuing to watch him without eyes to watch with. A hand, with far too many fingers, reached forward, brushing almost gently against his face.

Such a stubborn godling. Do you not see that none care to find you here? Why not accept our generous offer, and take what is rightfully yours?

He tried to reply, or perhaps to scream, but the sounds drowned in the blood slowly filling his lungs.

The face did not vanish, but the scene shifted around him. Now he stood, the creature facing away from him. The pain of the momentsdaysmonthsyears had, for the moment, left him.

Our army grows restless, the creature hissed.

"And they will receive their glorious battle." To Tony's surprise, the voice didn't come from him. Instead, he watched as Loki walked back into view, looking every bit as ill as he had that eternity before, back in the lounge of Stark Tower.

Do not forget your bargain, godling.

"The Tesseract is within your reach. Wait but a while longer, and it will be yours to command."

Excellent. I need not remind you the price of failure.

Loki, for his part, did an excellent job of masking any response to this open threat. But Tony had lived it, had seen it through the man's eyes, and almost sympathetically he felt his heartbeat speed up as panic flooded through him at the suggestion.

The god looked ready to reply, but instead stopped, eyes flicking beyond the Other to where Tony stood in the shadows. Loki's eyes widened, just by a fraction, and for a moment his true terror showed at the realization that he had screwed up. And as the Other turned to follow his gaze, as Tony felt that sightless gaze boring into his mind, he knew that he had screwed up too.

And just like that, the world began to shift and blur, and in a flash like a bolt of lightning Tony was thrown back to himself. He reacted physically, jumping backwards and careening into one of the couches as he checked himself to make sure he was all there.

Loki was there too, trying his hardest to regain his balance, only to collapse in a heap once more. Whatever was going on was clearly more than just a telepathic connection straight into his brain from a hostile alien force. (He could remember now, the feeling of flesh broken and burned, the stench of blood and the sound of breaking bones…)

Slowly, cautiously, Tony made his way towards where the demigod was curled in on himself, feverishly trying to win back control of the situation.

"What," panted Loki, "What have you done!?"

"It's all right," Tony said, when other words failed to come to him. Loki gave a shrill laugh, or as near a laugh as he could give in his condition. "You're…you're on earth now. That thing can't get you here if you don't open up the portal."

"Safe," Loki spat, "What do you know of safety, on your little backwater rock? Nobody is safe. Not me. Not you. There is only one safe place, and the norns have denied me that time and time again!"

"Calm down! There's still time, you can still—"

"I CAN DO NOTHING!" From somewhere far overhead, a sound like a twenty-bus pileup ricocheted through the sky; a portal opening to a world of darkness and monsters. And just like that, Loki appeared to give up, collapsing to the floor once more in a fit of hysterical giggles. "Nothing. That choice was taken from me long ago. There is nothing left. There is only…the war."

And for a moment, Tony believed it. Loki clearly believed it. And after what he'd seen and heard…

But no.

"You're wrong," Tony said, getting to his feet and striding towards the bar, pausing for a moment to pour a glass from whatever bottle was currently sitting there. With the wristbands securely in place, he returned to Loki's side, depositing the amber liquid. "You, have a drink. Daddy's gonna be right back. We've got some alien butt to kick, and then we'll come back and try to piece you back together."

"You…" rasped Loki, "What good can you do against his army?"

"Probably what we always do. Save the world. Or at the very least, we'll avenge it."

And for a moment, while Loki watched the Iron Man's suit deploy and the so-called hero take flight, he could believe it.