a/n: Tony is too fun to write. wooo~ (lotsa cursing ahead, sailor mouth ahoy)

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"Oh my God," Tony seethes, the readouts on his HUD flashing angrily, "you're like running into a fucking brick wall—"

"Stark!" Rogers roars. It's impressive, Tony thinks, that he can roar like that, when he's piledrived into like, a redwood or something. Where were they, the Appalachians? Tony clicks his heels together, à la Dorothy, and his thrusters push him up several feet, giving him a good view of Rogers trying to disentangle himself from maybe fifty roots. "What—what are you doing?"

It's funny, because Tony can really tell he wants to curse, but it must be ingrained in the man's patriotic DNA that fucking cursing made you a shitty fucking person, goddamn. Tony smiles, even though he knows Rogers can't see it; and it's good that he can't, because it's rather acidic, and it might be because of his inability to play with others. Or it might just be Rogers, because he, you know, ruined his childhood.

Tony wasn't one to hold a grudge.

"Long story, I'll tell it to you over dinner," he says, and sends a pulse into the nearest tree. The trunk rips across the middle and falls directly across the struggling form of Captain America. Tony almost winces. Almost. And he can't resist—"Timber!"

"Incoming communication from the quinjet, sir, and Agent Coulson."

"Go black, Jarvis. I need a moment."

"As you wish, sir."

"You sure do know how to talk to a guy," Tony is quipping because his heart is beating rather fast, and the body readouts in the upper portion of the HUD are flashing warnings at him like: HEARTBEAT TOO HIGH, only not in so many words. He maybe just crushed Captain America. His plans were going to shit, because of Captain America. Fuck Captain America is what.

"Thor?" Tony calls, racing back to the clearing. "Thor!"

"Here, Man of Iron!"

"Alright, ok, we can still fix this—get your dad to call down the Reading Rainbow Bridge or whatever the hell it's called—" He lands next to the Jolly Red Giant, and if he accidentally kicks his Lesser Younger Brother then whatever. The guy didn't look too hot, anyway—really pale, and sickly. And were his eyes blue? Tony could've sworn they'd been green.

Thor looks up at the sky. His hammer is hanging by his side. "Father!" he shouts into the night air. If it had been anyone other than Thor doing that, Tony would've had them committed. "Heimdall!" The blonde pauses, as if waiting for an answer. Tony lands, scanning the sky.

"Nothing's happening," he feels the need to point out. They probably had about point-three-minutes until Coulson or Berkeley brought their quinjets and the world went to shit—"Why's nothing happening?"

"Something—" Thor frowns. "I am not certain. Brother," Thor says suddenly, in a warning voice, "if this is your doing, this—blockage—" He presses past Tony and picks his brother up by the collar. They couldn't look less alike. "Cease this madness now!"

Loki smiles. It's the smile of someone who unhinged a long time ago. Tony lifts his faceplate. "Are we fucked?"

As if on cue, he's hit hard across his back, and sent staggering forward. His faceplate lowers. He turns, already on guard, and Rogers is there, holding his shield, looking a bit worse for wear as he comes out of the bushes and trees. Thor barely spares him a glance, glaring at Loki.

"Stark," Rogers says lowly, "I didn't take you for a traitor."

"How much do you know?" Tony asks. "About S.H.I.E.L.D. How much?"

"As much as I need!"

"That means nothing, right?" Tony levels his palm at the guy. "We're in the black now, Captain. Let me tell you something, off record—Fury is telling you nothing."

Rogers slides forward into a defensive position. "I knew your father," he says, and Tony wants to vomit, "and he was a man of honor."

"He drank booze and slept around on his wife. Honor?" Tony bites. He's buying time, so Thor and Loki can leave, get out of dodge, and then they can go back to picking up the pieces on their own. "No, he just talked a big game."

"Do you know him?" Rogers asks, ignoring the point entirely and jerking his chin in Thor's direction.

Tony opens his faceplate, eyeing Rogers coolly. "Yeah. What of it?"

"He's just like him!" And by him, of course, Rogers means Loki, hanging like a limp ragdoll in Thor's grip and looking like he might physically be ill over those Asgardian boots. Some brother. "We need the Cube to—"

"To what? Come on, Captain, you aren't stupid."

"No. I follow orders," Rogers leans forward, "and my orders are to take in the criminal and locate the cube. I'll have to apprehend all three of you."

"Well. Fury's certainly got himself a nice guard dog."

Rogers lunges. Tony shoots upward. The captain decides to try his luck with Thor, which, all things considered, is probably a bad idea; he brings his shield up in a whopper of a hit across the big guy's skull. Thor dodges at the last second, still holding Loki by the shoulder, and swings his hammer. Rogers only just ducks, and Tony sweeps down, grabbing him in a half nelson, and it's very one-sided. And anti-climactic. He could snap Rogers' neck right now if he wanted to.

"Give up?" Tony asks.

"Never," Rogers snarls, and attempts to swing his shield backward. It glances off the edge of his helmet, and the HUD flickers out for a split second.

"Damnit, Captain, just stay down—"

Spotlight. It lights up the twigs and broken branches, and for the first time Tony is really cognizant of his surroundings, of the circular, nuclear-war caused clearing that the four of them are standing him. Coulson's voice filters down from the quinjet hovering above them. Tony had created that silent engine, and now he's upset.

"Am I interrupting something?" Coulson asks.

Tony has Rogers in a headlock and Thor is holding Loki like an injured puppy, and on top of that Thor is Thor, an Asgardian who'd been on Earth for like, what, a month, maybe, and not been found?

And his plan. It was all null. Void.

Tony lets go. Steps back. Fights the urge to do something stupid, like burn down the forest.

Things were not, on the whole, looking up.

The floating fortress is gliding silently through the night sky. They've allotted eight armed guards for his transport, and Loki almost laughs at the joke. As if he could not slip a blade between the cracks in their armor; neck and shoulder, slitting jugular, perhaps, severing muscle. It would be child's play. But let them have there fun, he thinks wearily. Blocking the connection with Asgard had sapped most of his strength, and he was where he needed to be.

The mortal's fortress is stark, cool metal, silver and lifeless. His boots echo along the corridor. They pass a glass-fronted laboratory. He turns.

There is the object of his desire. So unassuming in his mortal garb—that such a man could contain such a—

His thinking stutters to a stop. He blinks.

The mouse of a mortal is looking at him, wide-eyed. Her mouth is the pursed, thin line of a thought. She's pale, and sleep-deprived, and utterly ordinary looking. There is nothing remarkable about her whatsoever.

He looks and looks and looks and then they are past and she is gone.

Fury slams the table so hard Tony thinks it might break. Or at least crack. As it is, all the equipment on it either falls over, or off. He and Thor are sitting in a detainment cell. There's a large slab of two-way glass over one wall. His armor is deactivated in the corner, and the only thing protecting him now is his Black Sabbath shirt that he'd spilt ketchup on yesterday.

"I came quietly, Fury," he says, kicking back and shoving his boots onto the metal table. "I don't know what more you want from me."

"Want? Want? I want to know why you were harboring a fugitive!" Fury roars, turning the point of his finger on Thor. The big guy bristles. His hammer is sitting around his feet, and only because no one except Tony on this whole goddamn Helicarrier knew what it did.

"His name's Thor," Tony begins tightly, sending a warning look in his friend's direction—stay calm or this is all over sort of thing—"and he's not a fugitive."

"I have already stated my purpose," Thor breaks in. "I came to return my brother home." It's taking every ounce of his self-control not to send his hammer into Fury's jaw, Tony can tell.

"I can vouch for him. I am vouching for him," Tony replies. "So let us out of holding and let's get back to the issue at hand."

"Rogers says you attacked him."

"Miscommunication. The HUD misfired," Tony lies easily.

Fury doesn't believe him. "You aren't telling me something, Stark, and I don't like not having all of the answers." He rubs his temples. "You said Thor here came to Earth, what, a month ago? And you told no one about it?"

Tony tips forward. He plants his elbows on the table. "By no one do you mean S.H.I.E.L.D? No. Because you didn't ask. So why don't we," Tony stands, "talk about my misdemeanor at some other juncture. In the meantime, Thor is on our side. And right now you have bigger problems."

Tony levels his gaze at Fury.

"Like that ticking tomb bomb you've got in the middle of the ship."

Fury straightens. His lips are pressed so hard together that it's a wonder he doesn't swallow his face. He storms out, the door opening for him, and, as he does, he snaps, "Two armed escorts on the big one and one on Stark, at all times."

Tony listens to the boot falls fade down the hall, the quiet chatter of the agents as they draw straws for who gets to guard Thor. He should feel offended that they only want to put one guard on him, but instead he only feels tired.

Tony says, "Thanks for not blowing him halfway to Asgard with your hammer. I know that took a lot of, ah, self-restraint."

"Your people," Thor says, gazing intensely at Fury's retreating form, "are they always so mistrusting?"

"Of things they don't understand? Yeah. Unfortunately."

"Then we are not so different," Thor replies softly. "It is a common malpractice on my own world." His eyes are sad but there is something there, something angry and off, that makes him look, for the first time, like his brother. Tony says, "Why didn't your dad come?"

"Loki," Thor sighs. Like that's an explanation. "I am sorry, Man of Iron, that your plan didn't work."

"No, I'm sorry," Tony cracks his knuckles. "Sorry that you got dragged into all of this."

"Sir?"

"Not now, Jarvis," Tony tells his stagnant suit of armor.

"But sir, Ms. Potts is on the line."

"It's like fucking three in the morning." Tony rubs his eyes. "I'll call her tomorrow."

"As you wish, sir."

"There is something far larger behind all this than we thought," Thor growls. Tony watches their armed escort enter the cell. "I believe you, big guy.

"I believe you."

"In case it's unclear," Fury says, not looking at him, pausing in front of some sort of glass screen, "you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass," the man presses a button, and beneath his cage a passage opens, the wind whistling up the tunnel and through the metal piping, "thirty-thousand feet straight down, in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury pauses. Then he points at him, "Ant," and points at the machine that opens the passage, "boot."

Loki laughs. He steps back from the glass, further into the pale, white light. "It's an impressive cage," he is feeling almost normal again, if drained, "not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." He turns sideways, looking straight into the heart of one of the security cameras the mortals enjoyed to utilize. "A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man." Fury is nothing. "How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" Fury answers, and Loki is forced to look the mortal's way once more. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and you kill, 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate." Fury's eyes glisten like obsidian and, if Loki could give his respect to mortals, this man would have it. But he doesn't sink to such levels. "You might not be glad that you did."

"Oh," Loki smiles. "It burns you, to have come so close. To have the Tesseract. To have power. Unlimited power. And for what?" He turns back to the camera. "A warm light, for all mankind to share?" He returns to Fury. "And then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury rubs his temples. Loki smiles languidly.

"Are you feeling well, sir?"

"Headache," Fury snaps.

Loki tsks. "Hm. Perhaps from the stress of holding my brother out of bond on your vessel. He is, as I am, someone capable of great destruction." He pauses, for effect. He can practically feel his brother's disapproval. The roar of anger. Of denial. He has not changed. "A cage like this—that would hold him quite well."

The seed planted, Loki retreats to the far end of the cell, settling on the bare bunk.

Fury's mouth twitches. He blinks. Finally he says, "Well, let me know if real power wants a magazine or something."

Loki crosses his legs and watches the mortal go. He does not feel trapped, not in this pretty birdcage, but there is something oppressive hanging over him, the memory of distant lips, a little mouse-haired, plain mortal.

The cause of his plan; the wrench in it.

Somewhere, worlds, galaxies away, the Other laughs.