Tony tried to pay attention, he really did, but he'd been having an unusually hard time ever since last week. Last week, the last time he'd seen Loki. At that thought, his mind drifted off again, ideas and possibilities of gods and myths and space and magic and-

"Stark." A ruff, annoyed voice broke him out of his daydreaming. Tony blinked and looked at the man at the head of the table. "I'm sorry, was this meeting at a bad time?" Nick Fury teased, or Tony thought he was teasing, it was hard to tell with the man.

He was about to answer in his usual way, 'Actually, it is; How about we reschedule this to...Never?', when Pepper shot him a look. So he grinned, knowing it looked fake and muttered through his teeth, "I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?"

At Fury's flat glare, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. They'd been at this for two hours, and he still had no real idea what was going on. He knew they were here to discuss his contribution to S.H.I.E.L.D's budget, but that was about it. He usually knew the gist of whatever meeting he was attending, but he was still trying to wrap his mind around what Loki had implied. He started to drift off into his thoughts again when Pepper tapped him on his shoulder.

"Tony, are you okay? You've been out of it all week." He flinched at the touch, startled that she was now standing next to him. He looked from her to Fury, who seemed to be concerned too.

He gave his fiance a half-grin. "I'm fine. I just have a lot on my mind and I need to figure it out." He wondered if he should tell them about his newfound discovery. Fury probably already knew though. He was the angry pirate captain of a flying ship full of super spies and assassins that collected and knew information about everyone and thing. Why wouldn't he know about gods, too? Tony turned and looked at Fury suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. Fury returned the look.

Tony wasn't going to back down and started a glaring contest with Fury. He was about to make a snarky remark about how Fury was cheating by only staring with only one eye, when the helicarrier tipped about 30 degrees to the left then immediately righted itself. Seriously, who hosts meetings on a giant, flying machine? All the turbulence would cause everyone's coffee to promptly leave the cup and meet the stacks' paperwork. That made Tony pause; He'd been the helicarrier before, several times actually, and never once had there been any turbulence.

A quick glance at Fury's worried face, he was scowling like he always was but Tony was pretty sure he was worried, confirmed Tony's suspicions. "Is that something I should worry about?" He asked innocently.

Fury glanced at him with his one eye, totally calm and composed. "Probably not." Yeah, Tony was totally on track, Fury was definitely worried about something. "If you'll excuse me, I should see what's going on. I'll call you if I need your help."

With that Fury left the room, his leather trench coat trailing dramatically behind him and the hydraulic doors hissing shut ominously. Yeesh, and people thought he had a thing for theatrics?

All existential crises forgotten about, Tony turned to Pepper. She looked so beautifully smart in that blouse and pencil skirt, her notes sitting on her lap. He got a sudden urge to kiss her but pushed it down. She smiled at him sweetly, her pen tapping absently on the table, "So what's been on your mind?"

Tony blinked, realizing that he'd been staring, without the excuse of a contest. "Oh, um, I, you know, was just thinking of new stuff to, um, build." He whacked himself in his mind, with how great he was at public speaking he should have been able to come up with something a bit more eloquent.

"Yeah?"

He nodded his head, averting his gaze and looking out the window. It wasn't hard to pretend that he was admiring the view, the sun streamed across the fluffy clouds causing the shadows to stretch and clash with the light.

"Tony?" He hummed in response. "What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing, there's nothing that I haven't told you about, why do you ask?"

"Tony, I'm serious about this. You've been staring off into space all week!"

Before Tony could answer, a gunshot rang out, followed by several shouts. Tony stood up, grabbing Mark V in its briefcase form. "Hold that thought," He then darted out of the room.

Following the noise of shouts, gunshots, and general mayhem, Tony eventually found himself on the deck. He paused, staring at the odd scene before him. A couple thousand agents were shooting frantically at a small handful of staggering people with swords. He squinted, trying to get a better look at them, and reeled back in horror.

They were skeletal beings, with rotting flesh stretched between their limbs. Grimy armor adorned the body and sickly green light flickered from their empty eye sockets. Whenever a bullet punctured the stretched skin the wound would glow the same green and heal. The small bullets weren't going to do anything against these creatures.

Some agents, coming to the same conclusion as him, holstered their guns and pulled out knives instead. One agent even had a wicked looking sword. As they charged the things, Tony activated his suit, letting it wrap around him until he was covered, and dove into the battle. He quickly found out that his repulsors were much more effective than bullets. After only a few more minutes, the deck was scattered with the decapitated, slightly scalded remains of the demon spawn.

He landed and peeled the suit off of himself. As it retracted back into its briefcase form Tony stalked off to find Fury. Eventually, he found him directing some agents to take the demon thing inside for 'further inspection'.

"What happened to calling me if you needed help?" Tony greeted, following behind him into the carrier.

"I said I'd call if I needed your help." Fury replied, stepping into a large sterile room and motioning the agents to set the thing down on the metal table in the middle.

Tony huffed, "Well, it seemed like you needed me," he gestured to the large, very obvious, repulsor blast hole in the chest cavity of the thing.

Fury ignored him and turned to one of the agents who was looking the beast over. "Agent Morse, what is this thing?"

"It's hard to say for sure, but it is dead."

"Yes, we killed it," Tony smirked.

"Yes, but no, this was dead before it was killed. The flesh is close to decomposing and there are no vital organs inside of it." She pushed some of the armor away to show that there was, in fact, nothing underneath the rib cage. "We'll need to run some more tests to decide its origin,"

Another agent cut in, "This armor seems to have Norse descent. See those markings there?" His fingers traced a small engraving on the breastplate. "That is the rune for protection, commonly put on armor. And this symbol here," He pointed to another one, "is the valknut, a symbol for those who die in battle, suggesting that whoever's armor this was, was buried with it."

Tony froze; Norse armor? A valknut? This was too much of a coincidence. Shakily, he stood up and left the room, no one noticing his absence. He pulled out his phone and hastily dialed Loki's number. "Come on, come on, pick up…" He muttered under his breath, pacing the hallway. On the last ring, Loki picked up.

"Stark?"

"Oh, thank goddess, Loki. I have a slight problem. And several questions."

"Now really isn't the time, Stark, I'm in the middle of something."

"Yeah, well I think what I need is a little more important."

Loki sighed, "What is it?"

"So, um, you're a god, right?"

"No. I'm not."

Tony blinked, "But…"

"Your ancestors saw us as gods, but we are not."

"Oh, yeah well, um, what parts of the mythology are true?"

"Most of them, but they are rather exaggerated."

"So like, are there actually walking dead people?"

There was a sharp intake of breath, "The Draugr? Yes, they are real. Unfortunately."

"Do they happen to look like skeletons, wear old Norse armor, and glow green on the inside?"

"Stark...how do you know this?"

"Well, several just appeared a bit ago and we had to take them out."

"Bqllr," Loki cursed, or at least Tony thought it was a curse, he didn't know Norse or Icelandic, or whatever language that was. He heard some talking off the phone, "Thor, they've arrived on Midgard." "Already?" "It seems so, he described them rather accurately." "Fretr, this isn't good. I thought we'd have some time to prepare." Loki hummed in agreement. "Tony, where are the bodies?"

"Um, one's in the inspection room being dissected I think. The others are probably still on the deck. Why?"

"How long has it been since you fought them?"

"Half an hour maybe."

"Daufi," He cursed again, "You need to burn them and toss their ashes into the sea. It's the only way to get rid of them."

"What do you mean? We already killed them."

"Death is beyond the draugr. They will keep coming back alive unless you make it physically impossible for them to do so. You need to burn them as soon as possible, they usually come back after 40 minutes or so." He paused and started talking to whoever was on the other side of the phone, but this time Tony couldn't hear him.

As he waited, Tony mulled over what Loki just told him. It seemed as though draugr were a pretty big threat. With a sigh, he stood up from where he'd been leaning against the wall and entered the inspection room. His phone still cradled against his ear, Tony tapped Fury on the shoulder.

"You need to burn the bodies and toss the ashes into the sea."

"Stark? Why would we do that?" The spy said, turning around to glare at him.

"Those are draugr or something like that, Norse is hard to pronounce. The only way to get rid of them is to burn them, apparently."

Fury looked at the man who'd identified the armor, "Is this true?"

"Well, if Norse mythology is true, then yes. But it's just a myth."

Tony sighed, "Are you really going to be dismissing the myth when some weird undead Norse warriors who fit the description of Draugr perfectly appear randomly on your ship?"

The female agent, Morse, looked up, "He's got a point, director."

Fury grunted, gesturing for the agents to carry out the order. "And how do you know all of this, Stark?"

"I have a contact who's an expert on this kind of stuff."

Suddenly, Loki was back on the phone, "Tony, where are you?"

Tony looked at Fury, "Where are we right now?"

"You're not giving our position away to a civilian, Stark." Fury growled.

Tony held the phone closer to his ear, "I have no idea, the main pirate spy thinks that you're going to blow us up or something."

"Well, we need to know to find out where they came from,"

Tony hummed in confrontation, "Alright, Jarv?"

"Yes, sir?" A voice from the ceiling asked.

Fury started, "You installed your A.I. on my ship!?"

Tony chose to ignore him. "Where are we right now? Oh, and what's our speed and trajectory?"

"You are currently over Miami, going around 650 mph northwest."

"Thanks. You got that?" He asked Loki.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a bit. Tell your friends not to shoot at us."

"Got it." Loki hung up and Tony put his phone back in his pocket, giving Fury a small smirk, "My friend is going to be here in a minute. I'd like it if you didn't shoot at him when he arrives, Thanks." Without waiting for an answer, Tony strolled from the room, heading to the room he left Pepper in. He couldn't wait for her to meet Loki.