OK, so I'm trying to do weekly updates but in reality I don't think that it will last.

Many thanks to SanguineNoctis who has helped me so much with improving my writing. I improves part of the last chapter (the bit with the surnames near the beginning) after he/she/they mentioned it and it is much better now.

Chapter 9

Stark plays out the scene in his head again and again:

He stands there, frozen, so shocked by the events happening before him. How could the proud god of mischief be reduced to this?

As the blue creeps over the villain's unmoving body, Stark still can't move: not a single muscle in his whole body will respond.

Soon the transformation is complete and the trails of magic disappear.

Blood red eyes snap open, locking onto Tony's.

"Are you happy now Stark?" a hoarse voice asks.

Tony flees.

How could he have been so foolish? To actually harm the person he had sworn to protect: the helpless man who had stood before him in that cell, whom he had gone to the interrogation to protect from the thugs at SHIELD. How ironic. By trying to help he had just made it worse. Typical.

But he had been curious and curiosity was in his nature; he could not simply ignore it, and anyway how was he supposed to know that it would trigger such a response in the god? No. He could not excuse his behaviour.

He still didn't understand something: why did the idea of showing his other form instigate such a reaction from the liar? Did he have a preconceived notion that there was something wrong with being a Jotun? He shouldn't be ashamed of his body: it was beautiful. And fascinating. Stark just wanted to study it, to map the marking across this amazing creature's body. But Loki would not allow that. He only let them see it to stop the pain. And still it bugged the mortal genius: why was Loki, the normally proud and self-confident god, so self-conscious about his natural form? That and his parentage. It all seemed a little strange to Stark. Another thing: Stark had sensed that Loki had been hiding something from them. If they asked the right questions they find it, but was the price worth it? Stark wished that Loki would simply surrender the information of his own accord, without the threat of pain but Stark doubted it.

He just felt so awful for what he had done. Unintentionally or not, he had caused immense amounts of pain and opened the flood gates for SHIELD to use the curse against the prisoner, knowing now exactly how to use it and what it would do. Stark could not allow that.

But how to keep Loki safe? He couldn't guard the trickster 24/7: he is only mortal after all. That and it would be enormously boring.

Then it hits him, the most stupid and amazing idea: he could simply move Loki to a safer location, away from SHIELD. He had plenty of hidden locations that would be perfect for the task and as long as a member of the Avengers stayed with him Asgard would be fine with it.

But how to go about such a task? Tony knows that he needs help from the other Avengers, preferably Thor if he could come down from Asgard, and he needs to trust that Loki would behave and do everything that they say. He could use the spell for that, but he really does need to get to know the guy better, and that requires talking to him.

Deciding to tackle this later, Stark reaches for a bottle. God knows that he needs to alcohol.

As soon as the director, the spider and undoubtedly the hawk have left, Loki lets the blue drain from his skin. He is lucky: the others followed Stark out quite soon after he fled, not bothering to ask any more questions, probably so that they can document, discuss, and analyse the interrogation. And then they will be back with even more questions. But at least he has some time to recover.

His whole body aches, without doubt an after-effect of the curse. He just hopes that he will get a bit of sleep in before they return, so that he can recover a little. All these hopes are dashed as he hears a set of footsteps approaching. Listening carefully, he decides that the uneven gait must belong to a drunken Stark. Right now the trickster doesn't want to face Stark after the humiliation he just faced, the man being inebriated or not. But it doesn't look like he has a choice in it.

The mortal swaggers in half empty bottle in hand. He flops to the floor, slouching against the cold grey wall. Loki can smell the alcohol on his breath. An intoxicated and emotional human is not what he needs to deal with now.

Clearly Stark isn't as drunk as the prisoner thought when Tony begins to speak without slurring any words. Evidently this mortal has a higher tolerance than most.

"I know that this won't mean much to you," he starts, "but I'm really sorry for before. I didn't mean to."

Loki ignores the mortal's obviously false words. SHIELD clearly sent in the mortal to lower his defences, thinking that he would drop his guard for the drunk man, and let a few secrets drop. But he won't fall for that.

The annoying man's prattle continues: "But why are you so pissy about the blue you? It's cool."

This really riles Loki. How can this mortal who has only lived a handful of years compared to his, tell him that his monster form is 'cool'? Does he think that he knows better than thousands of years of Asgardian knowledge?

The inebriated engineer realises what he has just said. He laughs and the noise grates against Loki's ears. "Get it? I said your frost giant body is cool!"

"Very funny Stark, it seems your idiocy knows no bounds." a disdainful voice replies. "Leave me be, I do not want to suffer your foolishness twice in one day."

Loki only gets a snore in reply. Maybe Stark can't hold his drink as well as he thought.

I wonder what happens when Tony wakes up (I do wonder because at the moment I don't know)

Drunk!Tony is hard

I'm really sorry, I know that this is no pairings but a bit of mild frostiron appeared. I couldn't help it; I think that reading a lot of frostiron has made it rub off onto me.

Please review, both positive and negative comments are welcome. I will have the next chapter up as soon as possible. If you have any ideas please tell me them. Thanks.