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Chapter 7

What do we do now?

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Bruce asked, waving four fingers in front of Tony's face. He had forced him to sit on the stump of a tree, now in Tony's pants and shirt while the other remained in the broken Iron Man suit.

"A hundred," said Tony. "No, fifty - wait, twenty?"

"Tony-"

"Look, we've been over this before. I feel great-"

"You're missing two years of your memory," Bruce reminded him and tilted Tony's head upwards to get a better look at his pupils.

"So what happened anyway?"

"It's a long story." Bruce forced out a smile. "You look okay and you seem...functional. We should find Loki-"

"The little shit's still causing trouble then?" Tony asked. "Doesn't seem like anything's changed in two years."

At first, Bruce looked taken aback at Tony's words and his mouth opened like he was about to say something. To Tony's suspicion, however, Bruce then hesitated and turned away looking conflicted. Tony narrowed his eyes, stretching his head sideways to meet Bruce's gaze, forcing the other man to look at him properly. "What are you not telling me?"

"It's complicated." And there was that I'm-trying-to-maintain-my-composure smile on his face again. "Loki isn't...the person he was two years ago. Look, we just need to find him and get you both to a hospital, okay? I promise I'll explain everything later."

Tony stared at him, then shrugged. "Fine. Let's split up, we'll cover more area that way."

"And Tony!" Bruce called out as Tony stumbled away in his half-broken suit. "Don't hurt him. Make sure you don't even threaten him, he's...injured."

"Got it!" He waved in acknowledgement, despite questioning the state of Bruce's mind. Don't hurt Loki? Tony shook his head, fighting down a frustrated confusion. Looks like a lot had changed in two years.

A rustle in the bushes and the very faint sound of crying caught Tony's attention. Was that...a baby? He hurried over to the bushes, panicking slightly, and - sure enough - hidden just out of plain sight was a small, red-faced child wrapped tightly in a green cloth. It had bright green eyes and dark hair, its face scrunched up as it cried, tiny fists waving in the air.

"Holy sh-" Tony raised his hands towards it, fully intending to pick the baby up but dimly remembering that he had no idea how to. He'd never held a baby before - and oh God, he didn't want to accidentally break the thing. Plus, he was pretty sure that was Loki's cloak and that just made things even weirder.

"Okay, kid, don't fall apart or spontaneously combust or anything, okay?" He told it gently, slipping his left hand under its head and using his right arm to gather up the bundle. Right, that wasn't too bad. He lifted it, surprised at how light it was, and brought the squirming bundle closer to his chest.

Something slipped from underneath the cloak, falling onto the ground, and Tony shifted the baby to fit more comfortably into his left arm, bending his knees - painfully - to reach towards the ground and pick up the piece of paper. It had been folded a couple of times. Turning it over, he read the word Stark written on it.

What the - did Loki leave behind a baby along with a letter addressed to him? Tony eyed the letter suspiciously before pocketing it in a small hole in the suit, he could read it later.

Cradling the baby gently, he tried to soothe it and after a few minutes its cries lowered to a sob. When he ran a hand across its wet cheek - because, really, the thing was adorable - it grabbed Tony's finger in a tight grip and promptly brought it to its mouth. Tony grimaced at the sensation of saliva and tongue on his finger. It seemed to think he was food. Lovely.

Looking into the baby's bright green eyes, he could've sworn it was just being cheeky.

"Where'd you come from, little guy?" he asked. After a moment of hesitation, he opened the cloak for confirmation and immediately tucked it close again. "Yup, definitely little guy. You look a lot like him, you know. I should call you Loki 2.0, or Baby Loki."

Baby Loki was looking at him and making gurgling noises.

"You are way too cute to be his son."

"Tony?" He spun around to see Bruce and Steve appearing behind him.

"Hey, guys," he managed to say as the baby started wailing again. "Look what I found."

"Tell me why Loki's suddenly one of the good guys now," Tony demanded, pushing the living room door open with both hands and giving Bruce and Steve an exasperated glare. "While you're at it, you can also fill me in on why Loki has a kid and why we currently trust him." Noticing that the two men were playing cards at the table, he added, "Where's Baby Loki anyway?"

After they found him, Steve brought Tony to the hospital while Bruce took the baby, assuring Tony that they would explain everything to him later. Needless to say, they hadn't. After insisting that he was perfectly fine, Tony and Steve returned to Stark Tower where Bruce was waiting for them - along with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wanting to start a de-briefing session.

That was almost an hour ago and Tony had sent the agent off immediately, claiming that he needed to rest when in fact he had spent the last hour hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. database and absorbing every bit of information he could about the last two years of his life.

The longer he continued reading, the more alcohol he ended up pouring. Firstly, he had been in a relationship with Loki. At that point, he decided to confront Steve and Bruce, and demanded to know their version of things. He couldn't figure out what to do unless he knew about everything that had happened.

"Sit down, Tony," said Steve, pulling out a chair beside him.

Tony folded his arms. "I'm good, thanks."

"The baby's at S.H.I.E.L.D.," Bruce muttered, running a finger across the top of his cards, a distracted look in his eyes.

"What? You let them take Baby Loki?!"

Bruce slammed his cards on the table as he jerked to his feet, causing a shockingly loud crash as his chair fell to the ground.

"Calm down," Steve started and Bruce ran a hand through his hair.

"I am calm," he said weakly. "Look, we tried, okay? We tried to do the right thing but we're out of our depth. I don't even have the staff, Sleipnir took it with him."

"In case you don't remember," Tony said with a laugh. "I don't know what you're talking about - I can't remember a damn thing. All I know is that we just handed a baby over to a government agency that kills people. Loki's baby, aren't we supposed to be helping him? Where is he anyway?"

"Does it matter?" Bruce snapped. "I hate to break it to you but he cheated on you, Tony. So stop pretending to care so much about him - he slept with Thor. And do you think Thor feels the slightest bit guilty about it? He didn't even apologise to you, did he? They-"

"That's enough," said Steve sternly, rising to his full height. "We don't need another fight. For the record, Bruce, Thor does feel guilty; he was pretty messed-up, he just doesn't show it because he doesn't know how to. And you can't say for certain what Loki's feelings towards anyone are, the point is that we wanted to help him - we did - but there's nothing more we can do. The Asgardians came to our mansion and destroyed it. We can't even fight against S.H.I.E.L.D. either because they're right, we don't know anything about taking care of a baby. He's in better hands there and-"

"So what?" Tony asked. "We just sit here playing cards?"

Steve didn't reply, he was eyeing Bruce warily and Tony followed his gaze with a frown. Bruce hadn't even picked up his chair, he'd walked over to the kitchen, cards still in hand as he leaned on the wall, his back towards them and one arm stretched over his head.

"Bruce. You okay?" Steve asked, and Bruce spun around with a bitter smile.

"Bruce," Tony started but the usually calm scientist was clearly distraught, yelling, "We should be out there, fixing this situation!"

"I thought there was nothing more we could do," said Tony, raising an eyebrow.

"And you're just going to accept that?" Bruce shook his head disbelievingly. "You want to know what's happened in the past two years? You really want to know?"

"Bruce." Steve shot up as Bruce said at the same time, "Don't tell me to stay calm, I'm fine. I'm not the one who can't control myself - and don't tell me to shut up, he's lost his memory and he needs to hear this."

"Okay?" Tony tried and Steve shot him a look which was clearly meant to tell him to shut up. "Go ahead then, tell me."

"You act like he's the one who played you but you couldn't even see what you were doing to him," said Bruce, he sounded calm but his eyes were hard and unforgiving. "The only person more unstable than Loki was you, you're the one who wanted to be with him but didn't want to be with him. You're the one who compromised yourself for a relationship doomed to fail, convinced yourself that it could work, and then tried every possible thing to make sure it didn't work."

"That doesn't make any sense," Tony interrupted and Bruce threw his cards into Tony's face, seething.

"You don't make any sense! When you were with Loki, how many times did you tell me that you were going to end things with him? How many times did you plan to? Countless. And then you just keep running back to him, you keep pulling him along because you can't let him go. News flash, Tony, you can't want someone and not want someone. You can't drag them down with your screwed-up issues - you make a decision and you stick to it. You can't make them feel like you could leave them at any moment just because you feel like it."

Tony's smile fell from his face, replaced by an anger steadily growing from his stinging pride. Right. That hit a nerve. He may not know what the hell happened between him and Loki but Bruce had no right to judge his relationships - who the hell was he to say that Tony had issues?

"When was the last time you were with someone?" Tony challenged him. "And in case you didn't realise, I'm not the one who turns into a big green-" Bruce grabbed him by the collar, slamming him to the ground with all the force of a bulldozer.

"If you say another word," said Bruce, his eyes boring into Tony's face. "I will hit you so hard your ancestors will scream."

"Are you coming on to me?"

"Stop it," snapped Steve. "Both of you. We have enough problems without stirring things up between ourselves."

"Stirring things up?" Bruce laughed, though he released Tony. "Things were stirred up between us ages ago-"

"The moment Loki walked through those front doors seven months ago," said Steve. "I know you don't remember, Tony, but you trusted him. You convinced me that it was alright for you to be with Loki, that you wanted it. Now I didn't know what was going in that head of yours but I was okay with it because I trusted you and you saw something in Loki that made you feel as if he could still be saved. Like you could save him."

"So this whole thing is my fault? I don't remember anything," Tony reminded them again, his voice aching with despair. What could he do? Besides, weren't they playing cards just a moment ago? Now they wanted him to save the day or something - it was enough to drive anyone mad.

"Fine," said Steve. "But this is it, Tony, this is that moment when you take either one road or the other. Your memory may never come back, you may never know how you felt about him, and you may never care for him ever again and if that's the case then fine, we keep playing cards, we forget about Loki and we carry on with our lives.

But if some part of you still cares about him, if you want to save him, then we have your back and we'll go all the way. We'll break into S.H.I.E.L.D., we'll take back the kid, heck, I'll even follow you into Asgard to rescue your boyfriend if you want - but you have to make the call and make sure that's what you want. Because I don't care about Loki, the only reason I'd help him is for you. What do you want?"

Tony felt like the world had been turned upside-down. One minute he was trying to save the world from an evil super villain from outer space and, the next thing he knew, he was in a relationship with that same super villain and forced to decide whether or not he could save him from the world. He'd had two conversations with the guy, how the hell had things escalated so quickly in two years?

Pushing Bruce off of him, Tony pulled himself up and surveyed his teammates with a sigh. "If we don't rescue him?"

"He's been sentenced to death in Asgard."

"Where did the baby come from?"

Bruce and Steve exchanged looks. "Loki was...well, pregnant," said Bruce and Tony choked, looking at him like he was insane.

"Our reaction exactly," Bruce said wryly.

"Even though the baby is yours," Steve continued. "Asgard thinks it's Thor's and sentenced Loki to death because they used to be brothers. Their law."

"Because Loki and Thor slept together," Tony added. He didn't know how to feel about that.

"They were drunk and it was an accident," said Bruce defensively.

"Tony, going after Loki and fighting against S.H.I.E.L.D. is not going to be easy."

"Is it worth it?" he asked.

Bruce sighed at him, and Steve looked him squarely in the eye. "Only you can decide that. Not me, not Bruce. If it's worth it for you then it's worth it for me."

"That's...nice of you." So Steve and him had become buddies? That was unexpected. There was something else going on though, he could tell by the way the two of them stood tensely around him, watching him consider everything that had happened.

They were testing him, he realised. Or, to be more precise, they were testing to see if Loki was worth fighting for. Tony turned away, feeling their gazes on the back of his head as he pulled out the piece of paper from earlier. Slowly, he pulled it open - and laughed as he read what was written on it. Smart-ass little shit.

"JARVIS," he said aloud, turning back to his teammates. "Get ready a spare suit."

Steve looked at him with relief. "Right then, off to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters?" he asked, and Tony smirked.

"No one takes my stuff and gets away with it," he replied, heading towards the door.

It was time to pick up Baby Loki.

A/N:

Ahhh this was such a Tony-centric chapter ~ the next one will go back to the usual mixed format of the past chapters + A LOT more Loki because he's been absent for too long.

(The next few lines are summary + my replying to feedback, feel free to skip)

1. Ola: wait, i am so confused right now...how did tony lose his memory and why did loki abandon the baby? did sif and the three capture him without that being explicit?

Tony was hit really, really hard on the head.

Sif & The Three arrived on Earth, found Loki in Avengers' Mansion (damn Sleipnir gave them the information), and there was a huge fight there.

The only references I made to that was Balder mentioning that Sif & 3 were on Earth, and later - after Tony lost his memory - Steve says something about the mansion having been destroyed by Asgardians, implying that there was a fight between them and Sif & 3.

Which also links to why Steve and Bruce were in Stark Tower, they weren't babysitting Tony or anything, they just had nowhere else to play cards.

Sorry for not making it more explicit - I'll try to make things clearer next time.

So basically the loss of Tony's memory happened during that fight with Sif & 3 at Avengers Mansion, he was badly concussed and the amnesia was just an unfortunate accident really. Judging by everyone's actions around him, they think it's not serious - which is why they're totally okay with beating him up and yelling at him - and he might even gain back his memory eventually. Maybe.

As for Loki, he's been captured and brought back to Asgard - no more Asgardians on Earth at this point. Even Thor's gone back with them. More on all of that next chapter :)

As for why Loki abandoned the baby, he's in Asgardian jail right now. The next chapter starts off in Asgard and deals with Loki, Thor, Sif & 3, Sleipnir, and the rest of the Asgardians so hopefully that'll give you more clarification on the things I've left hanging.

2. Now, to sum up the story so far (because I feel like it needs a short summary):

Loki has been captured by Sif and The Warriors Three, brought to Asgard with Thor to face justice.

Jory and Vali are still being tortured - what's going to happen when Sigyn realises her son is missing? Who are their mysterious captors, what do they really want with the two boys, and how did they get a hold of a staff that can stem Loki's powers?

What is Sleipnir up to? Mysterious Sleipnir, he genuinely cares about Loki and wants to do 'what's right' - even though he's the one who framed Loki and brought about his death sentence?!

As for the humans, S.H.I.E.L.D. has taken Baby Loki, and Steve and Bruce didn't fight back because they don't know if Tony still cares about Loki - I mean if Tony doesn't care, why would they, right?

After reading Loki's secret message to him, Tony realises he does have feelings for Loki. He doesn't quite know what he's doing but he's doing something because Loki is a smart-ass little shit and something about that makes Tony like him.

However, what Tony and Steve did not notice - although Steve maybe knows - is that Bruce Banner is not himself. Could it be - Bruce is in love with Loki too?

Then again, who isn't?

To be continued...

(If anything else was confusing/unclear - let me know :D )