Losing the Plot

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Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers. I do not get money for this story.

Summary: In return for Tony's spur-of-the-moment help in battle, Loki offers sanctuary. And guidance. Tony may or may not be going mad and the world may be ending soon, but the Avengers still refuse to give up on him.

Warnings: unabashed slashy vibe (although no actual slash), violence, gore, disinheritance, child death, child murder, mindfuck, angst, depression, suicidal ideation, rational contemplation of suicide, PTSD, gratuitous profanity (by which I mean, littered by F-bombs like they're going out of style), alcoholism, substance abuse, unreliable narrator, brainwashing, horror, misuse of religious themes, twisting of religious themes, implication of non-con in general, mention of historical genocide, serious contemplation of committing genocide, racism and specieism, generally offensive behaviour, playing fast and loose with canon

A/N: So, I was talking to myself: 'Self, one of your main Avengers ships is FrostIron, but you haven't actually published any FrostIron yet. Self, write yourself a FrostIron. It will be good for your soul. Here's a fairly original idea – haven't seen that before.' So I started writing, and then both Loki and Tony decided that, ugh, not shagging that guy… so, mentor-fic, anyone?

Regarding timeline – I'm thinking 2015. MCU canon up to and including The Avengers, plus the parts of Iron Man 3 and CA:WS I like, and some parts of Thor 2 that I don't like yet were nonetheless useful (Frigga lives!). Tony has Extremis, but he also kept the arc reactor.

The story is already written, and will be updated more or less regularly.

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Prologue: The Green Fairy

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If he were asked, Tony would have said that the story went something like this.

Thor turned up after the London thing with an expression that was probably supposed to be regal contrition, but fell much closer to a kicked starving puppy.

"My friends," he said, holding Mjőlnir in both hands like a magical artifact variation of a security blanket. "It pains me to take my leave, and yet such was the bargain I struck with my Father."

"Did you get grounded?" Tony asked absently, since the majority of his mental faculties were focused on determining what the Avengers would have to compensate for in their resident demi-god's absence, how they could compensate for it, if they should start recruiting (Sam Wilson was fitting in reasonably well, maybe bringing in other people wouldn't be horrible?) and pouring without spilling.

The last got a bit harder after two nights without sleep and half a bottle of – what was he drinking again? – some kind of Slavic liquor. Not Russian. Weird. How did that bottle get here?

He automatically filtered out the various subverbal protests to his flippancy, as well as Steve's imploring 'Tony, please…' and narrowed his eyes in Thor's direction.

For all that professed pain, he looked pretty happy.

"Nay, Tony. For what may sound to you like punishment, to me is in deed a much desired boon." Thor practically glowed. He held the Hammer idly in one hand and gestured expansively with the other. "The Allfather was greatly displeased with the cowardly acts of Malekith, but he found my actions in defense of Asgard worthy of notice. Perhaps that is why he chose to listen to my pleas. Or perhaps it was Loki's voice bending his ear."

Steve smiled, benevolently encouraging the entity hundred times older than himself. "That is great news. But how does it result in you getting-" Grounded, he almost said, Tony could damn well see it in his face. "-restricted from the team?"

Wow, Steve. If he backpedalled any harder, the whole couch would have been moving backwards.

"We struck a bargain most honorable," Thor explained. "The Allfather states that it is past the highest time for me to learn the ways of the court – to which, granted, I have never paid much attention. One may say that my mind tends to… ah…"

"I hear you, buddy," agreed Clint. He glanced sideways at Natasha, who provided an almost discreet supportive physical contact. "Our handler used to stick us in seminars as punishment. Sexual harassment, anger-management, bullying, you name it, we've slept through it. Repeatedly." He ended on a slightly choked-off note, so obviously Coulson was the vindictive nanny he meant.

Tony viciously squashed the itchy, burning sensation in his chest that made him want to take a baseball bat to something fragile.

"Your tale fills my heart with dread," Thor assured him with a cutely failed attempt at sarcasm.

The Avengers were definitely a bad influence on him – and that was saying something, since the guy had spent centuries in Loki's vicinity.

"There is no need to pity me, though," the prince continued, "for in return I have been allowed to bring my beloved Jane to my court once it is established, so we may begin our learnings alongside one another. She shall one day be a fair and just Queen to Asgard."

Tony had really, really strong doubts regarding Thor's last statement – and going by the expression, Bruce had some as well – but Steve was nodding supportively, and Tony figured out that Dr Foster was badass enough to fight this battle for herself.

He just hoped that someone would record it, so he could enjoy watching it… after the space dust settled.

"Thus it is with a heavy heart – and yet one filled with joy – that I must depart from you."

Tony clapped his shoulder and toasted him. "Send me an invite to the wedding, Ziggy Stardust; I want a closer look at that rainbow bridge thingy of yours-"

Then Steve was shouldering him out of the way and offering congratulations, followed by Wilson and then by Bruce. Clint said something dirty that Tony would have usually found hilarious, but he was a little too busy trying to catch Natasha's eye.

Something was rotten in the state of Asgard.

Tony had heard and read enough about Odin to know that this wasn't his style. The jerk-off had once refused to let Foster step foot into Asgard, and when it inevitably happened, wanted to kill her. He wouldn't have changed his mind, much less this easily. It might have been a tests? Gods were usually big on tests. Odin had thousand other, cheaper things that didn't compromise his pride which he could have used as leverage if he really wanted Thor to stay at home and study how to be a good house-ruler…

…and Tony was increasingly more convinced that Odin had no intentions of passing the throne to his son. In fact, Odin probably liked his position of nigh-on all-power enough to cling to it until he was dead and cremated.

Thor was incapable of bargaining even on the most basic level, so this solution hadn't come from his head.

No, this stank of a Loki plot. Tony hadn't believed in the news of Loki's death. Not for a second, no matter how shattered Thor had looked for all of two minutes (before someone had mentioned Jane Foster's name). He did happily crow his 'I told you so' when Thor brought the news of Loki's miraculous survival.

Natasha finally acknowledged Tony's stare. She infinitesimally narrowed her eyes, and then looked in Thor's direction. There was a bit of tension around her mouth. But she didn't say anything, and didn't even glance at Tony again.

Thor left that night.

And, for a week, things were quiet.

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Some time after this confrontation, Tony started losing the plot. Not allegorically, which would have been pretty bad in his opinion, never mind that Pepper – and a few million other people – had been accusing him of it for years. The problem, Tony feared, was worse.

He was tangibly losing the plot.

If his life were a storyline, he would have had to say that the characters had started acting out of character, the plot-devices way too often amounted to deus ex machina (deus ex Asgard, to be precise, but that was neither here nor there) and aside from the many and varied plotholes what worried him most was the lack of consistency.

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(About a year of too much fucking happening later) Tony couldn't really get away from JARVIS, that was the whole point of JARVIS, only maybe if he got kidnapped by the Ten Rings again, and he'd really rather not, because that way lay waterboarding and he wasn't all that fond of any water-related activities, lately. Not a feature he looked for on his Fun Things to Do on Your Vacation to the Middle East pamphlet. Sort of a been-there, done-that, got the t-shirt thing, only instead of a t-shirt he had the arc reactor, t-shirts were lame, everybody could have a t-shirt, he was Tony Stark, keep up here.

But Tony was drinking today, and that meant getting away from JARVIS the mother hen – he couldn't deal with breaking Jay's little silicon heart, he couldn't, he loved Jay, he wished he were a better dad than his dad – it was a curse.

He had chucked his phone and driven to this backwater watering hole and someone grabbed his upper arm and whoops-

Why was he standing in his living room again?

"These are much more fitting surroundings for a negotiation, wouldn't you agree?" asked a smarmy voice.

Tony inclined his head and checked out the speaker, from his toes – half-inch heel, tall boots, sexy – to the top of his head – black hair slicked back like he didn't want to show the world how adorably it curled when let free.

This was his green fairy? Not that it wasn't funny, or even right in a politically very incorrect way, what with the color and the eyes and the magic and, thinking of it, the way mythology claimed he liked to get fucked by dick.

"I was promised Kylie Minogue, and instead I got this," Tony grumbled, inclining his head in the direction of the fairy.

"It is a crying pity the way you persist in destroying your brain," the fairy replied, ignoring the real issue at hand in favor of berating Tony for his absolutely expectable reaction to post-traumatic stress.

"Alcohol," Tony said to the bottle in the cradle of his elbow, feeling injured, "you have betrayed me."

The fairy raised an eyebrow and tried to look amused. Failed. It plucked the bottle out of Tony's tender hold and walked off with a declaration: "I shall be taking that."

Tony threw himself after the thieving supernatural creature, but he must have been more inebriated than he thought, because he missed by a mile, stumbled, and crasher into the carpet. Fortunately he was very rich, so the carpet was very soft.

He rolled onto his back and squinted upwards at a pale face that stared down at him with a too damn Pepper-like mixture of mocking and pity. Sod them both, Pepper and the green fairy.

"What do you want?" Tony grumbled, contemplating the various scientific points of view on the advantages and disadvantages of attempting to sit up.

"The drink which you offered me and yet never provided," the green fairy replied, and extended his hand.

Tony took it. His genius mind seemed to consider it the by far most efficient available method of attaining verticality.

"And?" he asked as a hand on his shoulder steadied him, and then shoved and pushed him all the way into the soft, warm embrace of his couch. He liked that hand. He wouldn't have minded keeping it, but the green fairy took it back, and Tony had to admit that it was probably a good decision on the fairy's part, because he would have looked silly with only one hand. Much better with both. Then there was one that could steer drunk people around and one for holding that long-ass javelin. Spear. Thing.

Where had he put the bottle again?

"Ask not what you can offer me," the fairy declaimed like a Shakespearean actor – it was probably a spear, then, Tony decided, proud of his ability to find contextual clues. Unfortunately he wasn't that quick at finding any other clues, and the speech sounded way too complicated for the amount of alcohol in his blood. "Ask what I can offer you, and what you are willing to do in recompense."

"Not negotiating with terrorists. That's a thing, right? Say it's a thing – I can't take it if the TV's lying to me…"

The green fairy laughed, for once without a trace of mockery, slightly surprised, as though the laughter had been punched out of him. He forced the instance of genuine amusement away swiftly, and then said: "That is the philosophy your government proclaims. I never took you for one to march to anyone's fife."

Tony remained silent for a long time. A plethora – a myriad – of possible wishes to wish crossed his mind and evaporated into the New York night. He wanted Pepper back. He wanted the shrapnel out of his body and his health restored. He wanted absolution for the years of warmongering done in his name. He wanted…

"Genie, genie… that time I saved the world," he breathed eventually, then bent over the side-arm of the couch and threw up on his very expensive, very soft carpet. "Can you erase it from my memory?"

x

The not so funny fact was that he remembered, in hindsight, when it had started.

It had started at the same time as his now infamous return to heavy drinking.