A/N: Well. Um… welcome to my first Marvel fic. Of course it's Loki- it would have to be considering my rampant obsession and the fact that he's on my shirt right now. Why he's with Stark? Well, the world may never know because I certainly don't. The more I think about them, the more similar they seem- and my attempts to write a friendship fic suddenly evolved into romance and that's what you guys get.

So enjoy.

Marvel belongs to Stan Lee and that villain Mickey Mouse, but god damn if us fans aren't slowly taking it over.

There were few more vexing ways to be awoken than by the grating sound of a British attendant's voice- and a mechanical one at that. "Sir, your Utah radar has just picked up readings like the ones S.H.I.E.L.D. requested you monitor."

"I swear to God, J.A.R.V.I.S., I'm going to disable your accent one day." Replied the muffled voice of Tony Stark, marred by a heavy metallic desk which he had no desire to raise his head from. "It's what, three in the morning? Tell the astrophysical anomaly to go to sleep, I'll call it back tomorrow."

"I'm afraid agent Coulson stressed that this was a most urgent matter, sir. Mrs. Potts is already preparing for your departure."

"Well, so long as Coulson doesn't know when this happened, we don't have any issues here." Tony retorted, nonetheless raising his head and rubbing one scraggly side- it was numb, he evidently had fallen asleep in that position. "Get me some coffee and download the coordinates into the suit then get that up and ready. Coffee first."

"Already done that." He turned toward the doorway, one hand running through his ruffled hair almost involuntarily, just as his assistant stepped through and stood waiting, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. "With cream and sugar."

Pepper never indulged him quite as much as he would like, so he knew better than to expect her to come to him and rose to greet her, his eyes meeting hers at the same time his hand met the cup. "Now I know why I keep you."

He didn't smile, but then again he rarely did. The gesture was indicated in his voice and only she would ever have recognized it. "Because I'm the only nanny who would take you?"

"That too." He conceded before taking a quick draft of the drink. He preferred it with brandy, but he'd been lectured enough about the alcohol during his recent (believed to be) end-of-life crisis. He didn't expect to have a drink handed to him by anyone but a bartender until his friends forgot his birthday party. "So, Utah? What happens in Utah? Mormons and the Olympics, like, one time. Now they're getting energy storms? That's just weird."

"The exact location has been uploaded to your suit, sir." J.A.R.V.I.S. replied rather than deigning to respond. Honestly, the computer was almost as snarky as he was, no wonder they got along so well.

Tony turned away from his assistant, harder than it might seem when she was done up in a low-cut red dress even so early in the morning, and pointed at his iron suit more for the sake of bothering his machine than anything. "Get that thing all oiled up. I don't want to crash out in the middle of nowhere."

"You never crash." Pepper scolded, well aware of what he was doing. "I thought you'd be more excited about this."

"What, looking at some falling stars? That's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s thing, not mine." He retorted, draining the last of his coffee in one gulp and putting the cup down in such a hurry that it nearly dropped. Yeah, all right, he was pretty interested in this thing, and they both knew it, but that didn't mean he wanted to go out to Utah in the middle of the night. Couldn't the thing have happened in Vegas somewhere?

"Don't tell S.H.I.E.L.D. until I've gotten a chance to look at the thing myself." He ordered, stepping up to put on his ever-faithful red and gold suit that was now ready and waiting for him.

"Of course, Sir."

"Of course? Tony, you need to call Fury or Coulson right now." Pepper hurried to join him, looking back and forth between the machines as if she might seek some reason there. "They need to know about this-"

"And they will. Just, not now." Tony assured, the metal slamming shut over his upper arms just as he reached for his helmet, which he put on the moment he'd maneuvered into the torso. The thing was extremely useful, but far from convenient. At least he didn't need every one of his robots to get in and out of it anymore.

"Tony, I can't just… So long as you call them the second you've had a look." She warned, with hardly a second's hesitation. He wasn't exactly the easiest person to argue with, especially not when it came to something this fun.

"I can't make any promises. Well, I could, but I probably wouldn't abide by them." He conceded, closing the hatch over his face before she could protest further. "Don't wait up, honey."

"Do I ever?"

"No, but you should, it'd be good for my self esteem."

"I'm not going to help you blow up your ego, Tony. Nobody wants to clean that mess."

"Don't be silly, of course they do." Finally the hatch that had already saved them hundreds in property damage was opened, and he ignited his boosters just in time to hear Pepper calling for him to "Enjoy Utah" before he shot out of the building with a typical, and extremely satisfying, sonic crack.

Flying was extremely fun… when you were only doing it for a few short minutes, or when something was at least shooting at you to add a bit of excitement. But nothing shot at the Iron Man anymore. He was cleared indefinitely over any air field controlled by the United States, and as a result the soaring sensation, the freedom so many people longed for, became extremely monotonous before he'd even cleared California.

The sun was still down when he finally reached the location J.A.R.V.I.S. had set into his GPS, but Tony had no time to appreciate the time he'd made. He'd seen photos of what Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. were so interested in- nothing but a few fancy circles in the ground. This was a crater, seven or eight feet of land thrown up out of the ground to form thick mounds across the otherwise flat landscape. Not soft mud or soil either- rocky stuff with the texture of chalk typical of the ground so near a mountain. Forget S.H.I.E.L.D., it was amazing that whatever phenomenon had caused this hadn't attracted people from all over the state.

Tony didn't have to look long to find whatever had fallen, but for a second even he could hardly believe it. Coulson hadn't said anything about this in the briefing.

There was a human being lying in the center- surrounded by snow of all things, and everything closest to them was stained red, but somehow their chest rose and fell, producing a wheezing sound he'd earlier acquainted to the wind. He put in a call to Pepper as he ran to their side, stepping carefully as he got closer to avoid disturbing the land. (Well, he was worried of course, but he still wanted to study this whole thing.)

"Tony? What is it? Did you find the site already?" Pepper demanded as soon as she had answered.

He bent down slowly beside the person, the snow nearest to them so hot with blood it was slush beside hard ice. "Yeah, just did. Pepper, it's a person." He could see now they were male- though he had a soft, feminine face there was no doubt, considering what seemed to be a leather coat had burnt away almost entirely at the chest and edges, presumably during the fall. And they were blue.

"Wait, it's a- a person? You mean, like a human being?" Her voice was as adorable as it ever was when she was confused, but Tony didn't have time to enjoy that.

"Well, I think so. He's kind of blue." There was something clutched in the man's right hand, a blue box that glowed with the same light his arc reactor did. Other than that there were no similarities however, and he had no idea what kind of energy was coming off the thing. Whatever it was, the stranger couldn't waste the strength to hold on like that- he was barely breathing as it was.

"Blue? Is.,.. is he sick? Oh my God, how cold is it in Utah?"

"Not sick, he's really blue." Tony reached out to take hold of the black handle the man- more of a boy, really, kid looked barely in his twenties- was clutching and carefully released his grip. It wasn't hard, the unconscious stranger offered no voluntary resistance and the cube came free rather easily. As soon as it had he froze with one hand still holding it and watched curiously as the blue began to drain out of his skin from the fingertips upward.

"What do you mean blue, Tony?" Pepper demanded hysterically, and he was forcibly reminded of her fumbling attempts to help him replace his first arc reactor. At least she'd been able to see the danger then.

"A primary color, not red or green." He replied calmly, frowning behind his mask. The blue, whatever it had been, was gone now, but he'd have preferred it to the bleached white of the boy's skin after it had left. "Pepper, J.A.R.V.I.S. has my location, call me in a jet. This guy needs help."

"O-okay, I'll call Fury and have him get you an ambulance." She promised, her breathing slow as she attempted to remove the panic from her voice.

"No. No S.H.I.E.L.D., no ambulance. I want a jet with a medical team on it to fly this guy back to the house. Need me to be more clear?"

"Tony, if he needs to go to the hospital you can't bring him here just because you want a chance to look at him! S.H.I.E.L.D. is better equipped for this." She scolded, followed by the faintest undertone of a beep. He imagined her poised with the house phone in hand, ready to call one of those government stiffs the moment she knew enough.

"I think maybe you're forgetting that I know what it's like to wake up somewhere completely strange with injuries you barely remember getting." Tony retorted, and for a moment she was silent. He took that chance to get a quick reading of the boy's temperature undisturbed. According to the suit he was almost ten degrees below what he should be- a miracle he was still alive. Then again, he didn't seem to be normal even by Tony's standards. "Last thing this guy needs is to wake up in some government facility so Fury can interrogate him the second he's conscious."

"You know they won't do that. We can't take care of him like they can, Tony." Her tone had softened, become almost sad or even pitying- which, annoyingly enough, would be pity directed not at the stranger but Tony himself. She hated to remember what had happened to him.

Before he could respond the boy drew his attention away with a short gasp of pain, then began to suck in quick, shaky gulps of air, the effort bringing beads of sweat to his already chilled skin. He clenched his jaw but didn't quell his breathing, and a moment later gave a sharp cry and arched his back. Tony recovered from his surprise and crouched beside him, holding him down with as much force as he dared to prevent the boy from hurting himself more as he almost desperately swallowing air- which only increased the wheezing quality to his voice. Before Tony could do anything he suddenly relaxed, head rolling limply to the side. For a moment the older man stood stock still, horribly certain he was either dead or very close, until the boy gave a sudden, weak cough that only added to the blood in the snow.

That explained the wheezing sound anyway- he'd probably punctured a lung, no wonder he couldn't get enough air. Tony removed the metallic glove from his right hand and set it aside. He needed to see just how badly the boy was hurt which, unfortunately, extended beyond the suit's list of capabilities, and prodding him with metal fingers wasn't going to make anything better.

"Tony?" Pepper called in anxiously, and he only then remembered he hadn't replied to her yet. "What's wrong? Is he okay?"

No, he definitely was not. The moment he had removed what he could of the leather, some of it had burnt his skin or stuck to it by blood and would be too dangerous to touch, that became all too clear. Whatever wasn't cut open was heavily bruised, and some parts of his body were both. The majority of his chest was a violent redish purple, and after running his hand across the area as gently as he could, nonetheless causing a whimper of pain, Tony confirmed six ribs cracked and at least two broken. His left arm had been snapped as well- the angle of it made that clear enough. There was a dangerous amount of swelling over his stomach as well as heavy bruising, and that he didn't dare touch that in case the internal damage was as bad as it looked. Adding to that heavy bleeding from the back of the head, multiple burns and scrapes, a two-inch wide tear that split the length of his side and whatever injuries he'd taken in the back did not make for "okay" by any definition.

"Pepper, this guy's going to die if we don't treat him fast. So stop arguing and send that plane over, all right?" He replied after the girl called in with the same questions a second time. "Medical team, and a jet. Step to it."

She began to protest yet again but he canceled the call, aware that she would do as he asked no matter how reluctantly. The boy was a much more pressing concern at the moment, even if there was little he could do to help without the proper supplies. Or any supplies, actually. That was probably a bad thing.

Still, he could at least get him water. There was plenty of snow around, and he began to search for some that was blood-free that could be melted with a quick blast from the suit. He stood up to get a better look, then froze. The boy was looking at him. His eyes were glazed with agony and exhaustion, but they met Tony's and held fast, calm and cold and eerily beautiful. Though he was the uninjured one he found himself rooted to the spot like a deer caught in headlights, unwilling to look away and afraid of what might happen if he tried to move. The stranger at least glanced down at his arc reactor, watched it for a brief moment, then shifted his gaze to that glowing box, which Tony had discarded without a thought. He found he was holding his breath yet didn't let it out even when he was aware, not until the stranger had wearily closed his eyes and once again gone limp.

Nobody had ever met his gaze when he was wearing the suit before, not even when he'd pulled up the visor. This stranger wasn't just a puzzle, he was dangerous.

Good thing Tony liked danger.

A/N: Whelp. There you go. I hope you enjoyed it- reviews are appreciated! I don't care if they're bad or good or whatever, it's just nice to know people are reading. (Please no flame though- if you hate it, be constructive when you tell me why.)

Sorry I hurt you so bad Loki baby. ;_; I still love you, I promise!