Oh, God...

[shieldborne]

Infinity War Open Post






THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Drop me a prompt, or ask me to drop you a prompt. Open to doomy pre-IW foreshadowing, fix-it AUs, post-IW angst, character interactions that should have happened but didn't on-screen, crossovers, and whatever else anyone can come up with.

Comments

[shieldborne]

Sex is important to new relationships, and useful as a way to reduce stress and soothe tattered nerves. Steve is basically never going to turn down the opportunity, and may end up seeking it out more aggressively than Tony has bargained for, but he does respond to the press to his shoulder, making a muffled little 'mmph' of acknowledgement against his neck. He settles back again, then, caresses going back to something lazier and more platonic, and as long as he can be touched and be close, he's not going to complain about being put off.

Besides, it's unusual for Tony to be the more businesslike of the two of them, and that reminds Steve how much is at stake here. His expression sobers visibly, but there's a warmth that lingers in his eyes, and he seeks out Tony's hand with his, twining their fingers together loosely. "Sure thing," he says.

"Loki's going to touch down just before nine in the evening. We have to be there to follow Barton and Selvig, and there's no way to prevent the first couple casualties or the facility self-destructing...honestly, I'm not sure we should even try. I think we need to stay focused on tailing Loki." And if that conclusion sounds unlike Steve, that's because it is. He's thinking that there's a better-than-zero chance some of those first casualties were loyal to HYDRA and would have to be faced down later if they live, in any case.

"Once they establish their base, Selvig will be left to work on the Tesseract, and Loki and Barton will head for Stuttgart after iridium to stabilize the portal. The question is do we want to face off with Barton right after he gets to the iridium, or wait until he's back in the states? He'd be alone in Germany right after our younger versions grab Loki, which would make it easier to get to him, but then we would have to make sure the iridium gets to Selvig."

[starkingenuity]

“it’s an easy plant,” Tony says, oddly comfortable with this unconventional pillow talk. He’s always liked discussing shop, and while that usually was more boring with Pepper and her contracts and her quotas, this made sense to him. This is exciting. Tony’s got a head full of calculations and Steve can be and has been the blackboard to write them down on. He loves that.

“Statistically, we want Barton on our side earlier rather than later,” he says. “It will help us the most to get another person on the look out for the stones. I can handle the iridium.” Tony’s head turns away from Steve, though his eyes stay trained on the blond’s profile. “You and I are both susceptible to the scepter like this. It’s going to make tailing Loki hard. We should probably just be waiting in Germany.”

It actually means more death, but they can’t just save everyone. Fixing the past requires some casualties be allowed to happen as is.

“If we just act like mindless drones, no one will know the difference. Especially if we take out Barton quickly. He was giving the directions after Loki was captured, right?” Tony hadn’t been paying too much attention. He’d been trying to save the world.

[shieldborne]

Does it count as preventable death, Steve wonders, if they're talking about casualties they were never in place to be involved with before? Time travel opens up entirely new ethical issues. Loss of life can't be the sole determining factor; if it were, they'd be better off trying to evacuate low lying areas of the Phillippines in preparation for upcoming typhoons.

Steve doesn't like making this call. He's sure his younger self would be horrified by it, and rightly so, but it is to some degree the province of a soldier and commander to be able to run a triage operation. If a man is too badly wounded to be saved, you move on to one that can be salvaged. He meant what he said to himself before. Academically he's always known and understood this principle, he's just damn lucky he never had to put it in practice until now.

"I think you and I were always susceptible to the scepter," he says dryly. "Maybe more so than some others. Yeah, you're right, let's wait in Stuttgart. Safest option."

"Yes, Barton was Loki's commander for a short while there. Unwillingly." And they can't afford to underestimate him. Steve rubs his jaw pensively. "I think we need to grab him right after he gets out with the iridium. He'd said in the debriefing he didn't linger, since Loki had given him orders to let him be captured. Clint is bound to have a solid exit strategy. I think we better meet him right at the warehouse. Any chance you can get a floor plan of the place and a map of the surrounding area? We can't interfere with Barton's infiltrating the place, but we want to be close enough that we can spot the right moment to move in."

[starkingenuity]

“You know I can,” he grinned, though it would be FRIDAY doing the heavy lifting from the database they’d brought through from the future. Though Tony might be able to appreciate the difficulty level these decisions might be for Steve, and as far as he’d come with trying to see more than just himself, he wasn’t thinking of the way the blond might feel at the end of this. It was not something either took lightly, the deaths of others, but Tony might be able to compartmentalize it more. Likely because he had so many under his belt, more likely because he lived his own guilt, under the surface.

“Few hours of sleep and then we’ll pick up the suits and go.” It wasn’t like they could just borrow Stark’s jet and Tony didn’t ride commerical. There were just some things he had to put his foot down about.

Tony turned to that his front was against Steve’s side and nudged him over. He knew the blond was a cuddler, even if he himself was not, though luckily holding Steve wasn’t a bad way to spend the moments between wake and sleep.

Getting to Germany was fine. Waiting for Loki to arrive there as well happened to be a little nerve wracking, especially since neither man knew if it would go according to plan. And, technically, it didn’t. Stark and Rogers would go completely off script the moment they took to the air in the quinjet. And how could they not?

“See and good doubles lately?” Tony asked, half ignoring a smirking Loki held captive in the hold as he regarded Steve Rogers, living legend, future romantic interest.

[shieldborne]

Steve does not actually sleep overnight. He lies still, feeling the closeness and warmth of the body beside his, and finds some peace in just that, even if his brain insists on quietly going over potential scenarios and pitfalls they might encounter in the next couple days. He can't anticipate everything. Even he and Tony, between the two of them, can't anticipate everything. They'll have to improvise at some point, and possibly have to pray.

Of all the things they might have anticipated, though, the ones they should have considered first and foremost are the fact that their younger selves are both loose cannons.

Rogers-the-younger has been told in no uncertain terms that he is not to discuss his mission with Tony. He doesn't consider himself under orders, per se, but knowing what's at stake here, he feels an obligation to follow the plan laid out by his older self and the older Tony inasmuch as he can. Of course, they didn't bother to warn him that they were going to visit the younger Tony, too (because at the time they didn't know), so he's caught off guard when he speaks to him on the plane.

His eyebrows go up, and he glances at Loki briefly before turning a skeptical little frown on Stark. "What, like a tennis match? I only follow baseball."

Oh, they're going to need to talk this over, for sure. But maybe not in front of the others. Especially Loki.

[starkingenuity]

Clever. Tony is immediately amused, which is a far different take than he’d had the first time around. This guy is unintentionally charming and his whit is perfect and precise. Tony’s always enjoyed a good match, more tennis jokes there, but Steve is on another level. No wonder they’re together later in life. Tony can already feel the attraction to go with the appeal and he has no hang ups on being with other men. He’d gone through a whole stint in his early thirties solely sleeping with men.

Steve doesn’t get a side eye, he gets a smile. “Baseball is a sport that doesn’t get you anywhere. You just run in a circle. Not to yuck your yum,” he adds, a sweet demure to the insult he has a feeling Steve won’t take personally anyway, even if Tony meant for it to be. He feels no open hostility towards the taller man, nothing that he felt in the first few minutes of meeting the other one.

He can’t help but look him over too, something Loki doesn’t miss at all.

“But you’re the spitting image of this guy that I had pizza with two nights ago. Remind me to take to this place I know in Brooklyn when we have some—“

He’s interrupted by a crack of thunder and turns to ask Loki if he’s afraid of it. What happens next takes them all by surprise, though meeting the God of Thunder does very little to stop Tony’s brain from working overtime on Steve Rogers. They have a conversation to finish, hopefully over pizza, because Tony has a whole lot of news to tell him.

[shieldborne]

Loki is fascinated. You would think these two alpha males would be posturing and growling, but instead they're sniffing one another, tails cautiously wagging. Between the two, they embody some of the more irritating aspects of his beloved older brother: the blond and muscular do-gooder, the charming and absurdly popular princeling. He'd like to see them at one another's throats, ideally, but if they continue to click like this, another distraction may be in order.

This could be fun yet. He'll be sifting the overheard conversation for nuance for the next several minutes, searching for bits and pieces he can use.

Meanwhile, Steve's opinion on Tony Stark is still forming, but 'big mouth, flash bastard, pretty smile' is a better start than 'I could have finished that fight just fine on my own, you patronizing jackass'. He's not aware how much more intel he has than Stark, not aware that Stark might not even know there's an older him running around, but he knows he's going to have to be careful what he says to him.

At the same time, the affection between their older versions was...compelling to watch. If Steve's honest with himself, on a purely physical level, sure, he'd tap that. But intimacy is more of a draw than pleasure. Trust is more of a draw. He's going to need time to decide if he's got that in him, but...

God, does he need someone he can trust. Badly.

"Sports in general don't get you anywhere," he says. "I think they just exist so people can look heroic without killing anyone."

Yeah, he thinks of baseball as a gentler substitute for war. In that sense, it's dumb, but maybe necessary to curb humanity's more violent impulses. But pizza is a better topic and gets his attention at once, because he remembers the last few seconds of chatter between the older Stark and his older self. Is that Tony's subtle way of telling him something? Because it's not actually that subtle.

God only knows what he would have said had the thunder not interrupted.

As it is, the fight with Thor is a frightening cut above any hand-to-hand combat Steve has participated in as of yet. The blow to his shield feels like it ought to have shattered every bone in his body, serum or not, if the disc wasn't made of Vibranium. And Tony just flew right out to face this lunacy alone?

He's quiet on the jet but when they land on the helicarrier, he grabs Stark's elbow as they disembark, the strength of his tug swiveling his body toward him for long enough for Steve to lean in and murmur, "You're reckless. I need you not to get yourself killed. You're supposed to be around for at least another decade."

[starkingenuity]

Tony’s eyes drift from Steve’s face towards the hand on his arm where it lingers until Steve’s head drifts down towards him. He’s not at all stunned by it, but his usual attempt to keep anyone or anything from touching him hasn’t quite kicked in just yet. He’s both startled and intrigued. Steve’s voice is deeper than his own, despite their age difference, and he’s wearing an aftershave that smells a little like something his mom’s dad used to apply liberally to his cheeks, but it works for him. Tony’s eyes return to the curve of that jaw, softer from this angle. “If I’m still supposed to be around in ten years, that gives me a decade long get out of jail free card,” he chirps, not pulling his elbow from Steve’s grip, even if it’s a little too tight for comfort. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to deny you the privilege of knowing me,” he grins, and only then heads towards the hellicarier. He has some things to do, like finish developing a program to plug into the mainframe to figure out what the hell is going on…and maybe to help him decrypt a few files JARVIS pulled up that obviously have something a shadow stamp to them.

Is it HYDRA? He’s not sure. He’s not sure he wants to be sure either. He does, however, know that there’s supposed to be someone interesting meeting him here. Maybe not his future partner in crime, but Bruce Banner is a little more interesting than his dad’s gift to humanity. For the moment. At least until they can get some pizza.

“See you around, Capsicle,” he calls to Steve anyway, pretty sure the blond is watching him go.

[shieldborne]

Steve remains a little bit nettled, but he lets Tony get away without protest, snorting quietly at the nickname. Yeah, he can see where there's a natural personality conflict here, but abrasive does not necessarily equal bad friend or bad person. He wants to know more. He needs to know more. In the meantime, though, there are other concerns, and as soon as the debriefing is over, as soon as he's watched Director Fury's little chat with Loki over the monitors, he begins moving around to get a clear idea of the layout of the helicarrier.

The SHIELD agents are almost universally deferential to him. It's a little strange. They won't just tell him anything he asks. Some things are classified. But general information about the vehicle is easy to collect, and it isn't long before he has a schematic in his head. He has time until the invasion, and his task is to get Loki off the flight, with the scepter, without casualties. Selecting a clear path (or two, or three) he might escape by is simple groundwork. Making them appealing to a fleeing demigod (there is only one God, but evidently the universe is crawling with the little-g type after all) is a taller order. You can't just lay out breadcrumbs.

The simplest thing, he supposes, is for him to lead or chase Loki off the helicarrier himself. Which means he'll have to throw a fight, something he's never done in his life. It's distasteful.

In the process of exploring, he makes his way down to one of the multiple cargo bays in the place. The keypad to open the doors might as well be in Greek, but the doors themselves are comparatively weak metal, and shoving the edge of his shield in the gap isn't hard. A little pushing and prying and they pop open, which is good to know for future reference, and once inside the room he can see...crates. Some kind of body armor. Weapons. Lots of them.

Jesus Christ. He opens one of the boxes, then another, and his heart freezes in his chest, because the designs he's looking at are not that far off from what Zola made, to make use of the energy from the Cube. He can even see what must be some kind of power cell in some of them, quiescent and uncharged for the moment, but even at that rate tinted a familiar chilly blue.

He wants to slam the lids of the crates down hard enough to shatter them, hard enough to break holes in the hull of the airship. He takes several deep, calming breaths, heart thawing and then beginning to hammer violently against his ribs. When he turns and heads back up the hall, he's seeing a red mist around the corners of his eyes. Funny, he thought 'seeing red' was just a turn of phrase.

Never in his life has he felt so utterly betrayed and alone. His older self did say he had more to tell him, but destroying the cube came first. He's starting to get an idea why. The idea of a half-dozen stones of power struck him as plausible before, if strangely childish, but the reality of humans constructing weaponry using energies beyond their comprehension is all too familiar. History repeating.

And there's only one person in the whole goddamn place he can maybe-safely discuss it with. Someone he's not supposed to be blabbing to, but--fuck it. He needs Tony Stark.

[starkingenuity]

Tony is having his fun, bugging where he can, poking around the places he can’t skip JARVIS into one of the interestingly decentralized systems, and generally being a nuisance. It’s empowering, and though he’s almost always this smug in general, today just feels special. He can’t get away with blending in and being ignored the way that Steve can. Everyone is interested in him strutting around, except, perhaps, for Bruce Banner. The guy is on board, he knows it, and he really wants to go and talk to him before everyone else figures out that the guy that destroyed Harlem all on his own is hanging out in a floating metal balloon.

Plus, he also wants to confirm some of what the Steve from the future said. He’s not going to take the guy at his word when so much is on the lone and they have some Norse god standing menacingly in the middle of Banner’s home away from home.

He doesn’t expect to just bump into Steve rounding the corner, but there he is, looking like he’s about to stamp his foot and charge. Tony is immediately on the defensive, not sure if he can outrun a charging super soldier and get his armor. He’s thinking not.

At least he’ll die looking at something beautiful? It’s not really a lot of comfort, and his eyes narrow slightly, pupils dilating.

“Whatever someone said about me is probably true but I can explain.”

[shieldborne]

Is it lucky they've run into one another so easily, or a disaster? Time will tell. In any case, Steve's pace slows slightly when he sees Tony, his eyes flick over his face, and his mouth opens and closes again. The red haze fades a little, but only a little. This Steve Rogers is younger than the one Tony has met. He's got less of a hand on his emotional volume controls. He's angry, rather than sad; confident, rather than guilt-ridden. He's still the same guy, for all that, but the older Steve would not sweep forward the way this one does, and more or less manhandle Tony into the nearest room with strength that seems like more than enough to embed him in the wall.

The room they end up in is, amusingly enough, a restroom. Unisex, ADA-compliant, very tidy, but probably not to Tony's liking nonetheless. "We need to talk," Steve tells him in a low, urgent voice. "I need to know what they told you."

Okay, he probably needs to offer a carrot as well as a stick. After half a second's thought, he adds, "I've just been in the cargo hold. There's weaponry down there that's obviously designed to make use of the Tesseract."

[starkingenuity]

Though Tony is not as bad as he used to be with sudden touching, he likes to do it in his own terms. This is time number two that Steve has just broken into his personal space and steered him around. The first time had been brief, but this time, Tony can just about keep up as he’s more or less dragged into the bathroom. At least Steve doesn’t just press him against the wall, but his mind has already gone to that conclusion and he’s cringed at the mere thought until his brain shuts off long enough for blood to flow in the opposite direction.

He’d thought about maybe getting Steve out of his system, because just knowing a potential future version of themselves, while not guaranteeing a relationship repeat, has put the idea into Tony’s head. A quicky is a good idea... but oh no, not here!

“Wait, wait, there are better places to do this,” Tony frets, incorrectly reading Rogers’ intent, until the conversation catches up with the blood flow issue. “Hang on— They? They who? Did you meet another me? Damn it, I was played. Why? Oh, stupid question,” Tony fills in for himself, frowning up at Steve and telling Lil Stark to stop getting his hopes up. “What did they tell you and I’ll fill in the blanks?”

He really hopes Steve doesn’t know about the boot fetish.

[shieldborne]

Steve is utterly focused on duty right now, and it's probably fortunate for Tony that he is. Not that he's entirely above a quickie in the bathroom--or backstage at a USO show--but it's not on his radar right now, and he misses the implication when Tony stammers out that there are better places for this. Later on, if they survive this, he may remember this moment with his usual eidetic clarity, guess at what was going on in the other man's head, and blush for days.

Right now, he's just let some vital intel slip and he's cursing himself. But there's no covering it up. "You oughtta ask yourself why an older you wouldn't trust you," he sighs, tension easing a little. His hands are still on Tony's shoulders, but he manages to slowly get himself to let go, hoping he hasn't left bruises.

"He told me you'd do something stupid to try and save us, if you have all the info. I'm not convinced he was wrong, there. But what neither of them told me is why SHIELD would be using the Cube as an energy source to power their weaponry."

He folds his arms across his chest, eyeing Tony uncertainly. "What I know is that the Tesseract and the scepter both need to be destroyed, but not until the time is right. According to them. And I don't like it, but their argument made sense."

[starkingenuity]

“You didn’t trust me,” Tony says, not quite snapping, but he can’t do more than duck away from Steve once he’s let go and he hovers near the sink, a scant three feet away from the other man. Talking this close, without the ability to stroll around and move his arms, alarms him, fundamentally. He can’t and won’t say that out loud, however. “You came to my house and said you were alone and that I couldn’t trust SHIELD because a lot of them are actually HYDRA.”

Judging by the look on Steve’s face, that’s new information. It makes Tony relax, almost.

“They gave us different information,” he concludes, “pieces of a puzzle. I guess they didn’t expect us to talk to each other.” That means that they had spoken to each other in the pasts of the other two. They’re working on a new timeline, not a looped paradox like Tony had initially assumed. Steve’s not here because it had happened before. He’s here because something really bad is going to happen to them all and this is the best point of convergence.

That thought is sobering.

“They didn’t trust you about HYDRA. And they didn’t trust me about destroying Loki’s scepter and the Tesseract. Something smells bad and it’s not the bathroom.”

[shieldborne]

"They tracked me down at church," he says dryly, recalls in retrospect that the older Tony wasn't entirely on board with showing himself to Steve either, and wonders what that means.

Bucky used to say you can't trust a man that won't look you in the eye.

The look on his face wavers from bitter rage to complete devastation at the mention of HYDRA. It rings true, based on what he's just seen. Too true. And it means he failed, laid everything on the line and lost it all...for what? He takes a couple steps away from Tony and leans against the wall, chest rising and falling rapidly. Feels like an asthma attack. He knows it's not. Can't be; he's trapped in a body that doesn't have asthma.

He holds up a hand in the hopes of forestalling Tony's commentary for a moment, then runs his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes, taking a couple breaths, and allowing the memory of ice to flee his veins. It's a long moment, but when he speaks again, his voice is even.

"What they told me, is that the Cube and the Sceptre are two of a set of six objects with immense power. Sometime in the future, someone named Thanos--someone not human, I gather--collects all six and destroys half the life in the universe. Which sounds insane, compared to what's staring us in the face, but..."

But. "What would a guy like Loki be doing here if not chasing power like that?"

[starkingenuity]

It’s unnerving to watch Steve have a momentary panic attack. Tony knows all about them. Sometimes he still gets them when he’s trapped in the dark or if he gets too hot while he’s working. Afghanistan had not been filled with torture, but if his periodic dreams that he’s still attached to a car battery is any indication, it did more than find the heroic streak inside of him. Tony’s always been a philanthropist, that much is true, but there’s a difference between throwing money around and physically standing up to injustice.

He doesn’t say a word to Steve until the blond can talk again himself, his face set and eyes filled with a fire all their own.

“I’m used to people not telling me the whole truth. And I’m used to finding out what that truth is anyway,” he says, not quite trying to be kind to Steve, but certainly with an air of comfort to his voice that he doesn’t always have. “The guy that can answer our questions is just downstairs, taunting everyone with that weird Grinchy grin of his. I think it’s time we pay him a visit.”

And he would really like to get out of this bathroom.

If Loki won’t give up the goods, Tony has already started the process on gathering information about the goings on with SHIELD. He’s pretty sure he can have JARVIS compile the information they need.

[shieldborne]

Steve knows all about shell shock. He's seen it in the men around him, during the war (which wasn't so long ago, from his perspective). Before that, he'd heard plenty of stories about men coming home from the (first) Great War, men like his father only slightly more fortunate, in that they were alive. They were still fighting the stigma, last he checked. Plenty of people still considered shell shock a sign of weakness and cowardice.

In another man, he wouldn't. In himself, he doesn't give much ground or have much sympathy. So the less said about that moment, the better, perhaps, and in the back of his head he makes note of the look in Tony's eyes, the patience he's just shown, and the altered note in his voice.

Yeah, okay, he can see himself maybe falling for a guy like that.

"Right," he says, putting that on the back burner, and setting his jaw. "I'm with you on that. But we can't have SHIELD overhearing, and I know they have cameras there. Can you wave your magic wand or somethin'?"

Steve understands technology just well enough to know what he doesn't know, and recognize what Tony does know.

[starkingenuity]

“Abra Cadabra,” Tony says, moving his hand like he’s conducting some sort of orchestra. It’s not going to be hard to mask themselves, video looping and sound technology is easy to manipulate. It’s going to require more than that. They’re going to need a distraction. Interestingly enough, Steve himself poses to be the biggest one. “I have it on good authority that there’s at least one person here we can trust. How’s your signing hand?”

Blanking our the recording devices and taking Coulson’s attention off of the situation will let Tony ask Loki about Thanos.

He figures it’s a little bit of a risk, but he’s pretty much lived his life through risks and why should this be any different?

Cookson will be easy to find. He’s in the room with Loki, the only one who is, because Loki is saying some weird things and pissing Fury off. There are armed guards outside, sure, but no one is breaking out of that cell they have him in. And Coulson is more or less immune to just about everything. But that’s when Captain America shows up, all smiles and handshakes.

Does he notice Stark? Sure. But what can the world’s richest baby do? Maybe piss Loki off? Fury might even like that. The smile on his face is bizarrely frightening.

[shieldborne]

Despite the situation, that gesture wins a little smile from Steve, and when the suggestion he pose as a distraction hits home, he gives a brief eyeroll. Not at Tony, at himself, for not thinking of that. He's not so good with intrigue, apparently.

But he is pretty good with talking to Coulson. It's reassuring to find out that at least this guy is trustworthy, that HYDRA may have infiltrated the organization, but that doesn't mean every agent is aware of that, or with HYDRA. On some level he's probably clinging to that hope as he clasps hands and sheepishly prompts the man to talk about his card collection. And he gives a little, with this conversation, reminiscing about the rest of the Howling Commandos, wishing they'd had their own sets, because the cards are mostly fictionalized images and USO tour snapshots. And then he asks if Coulson's met Peggy, which prompts yet more quiet discussion.

Loki says nothing when they come in, simply holding onto that eerie smile, and maybe neither Steve nor Tony believes in gods as such, but there's something eldritch about his eyes. He also looks a bit haggard, like he's coming out on the other side of a ferocious illness. His eyes are hollow, cheekbones a bit too sharp. Actually, everything about him is a bit too sharp. He's prickly and pointy, all blades and angles and subtle sickness.

"And so," he greets Tony quietly. "You come to me. I had thought you might be too absorbed getting acquainted with your new friend...but you have yet to disappoint me."

In point of fact, he didn't expect either of them to come speak to him, but he's only biding his time here, for the most part, and acting like he holds all the cards is a simple way to manipulate them.

[starkingenuity]

Tony isn’t about to let someone like Loki get under his skin. Very few people do and this bat shit crazy weirdo isn’t going to be one of them. That doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the guy. Tony has always been attracted to people like this, at least on an intellectual level. It’s a game. Very few people can keep up with him.

Obviously, Loki has already been trying, though. He’s already taken note of the situation. And, Tony surmises, that’s because he wants to be here. Why?

He puts on a smirk and slips his hands into his pockets. He’s not defensive. Loki isn’t getting to him. He leans in. He’s interested. Loki interests him. Body language, obviously, is something Loki is paying attention to and so Tony amps up his body language game.

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Oh Great Boot,” Tony says, amusingly throwing out what he’d caught Loki saying to Fury about the human race being mere ants to a person like him. “But I’m actually here for Thanos. Heard you might be besties with him.”

((ok so I guess I have secretly wanted to play Loki for a while))

[shieldborne]

The trouble with Loki, perhaps, is he buys into his own manipulations too well. Here, among lesser beings, he can imagine himself a puppet master, tugging on strings, making them all dance. It doesn't actually get him much, is the thing. It buys him time and distraction, for his underlings to open the portal. That much is true. And it allows him an opportunity to make his point to Thor. Companionship and trust are empty things. Worthless. Sentiment.

These two men, the old soldier and the broken knight, seem to be reaching for a connection. If Loki can't disrupt it, he can encourage it and watch it break them. But in the meantime, this one, the dark one, Stark, is clearly the chessmaster. He straightens when Tony leans in, folding his arms behind his back like the genteel prince he really is not but is skilled at pretending to be. He's taller to begin with, and their relative positions just emphasize that height disparity.

He's not thrilled that Stark seems unintimidated by him, but the superior smile lingers--until Thanos is mentioned. Something flickers in his face, his silver tongue pressing to the roof of his mouth, and his throat works visibly in an anxious swallow. They are not supposed to know that name.

"If you expect to parley with him," he says after a few seconds of leaden silence, "you will be disappointed. You should be on your knees blessing me for my intervention on your worthless world's behalf."

After all, what's worse? The indiscriminate slaughter of half the planet's population, or a more controlled burn leaving a stable ruler to rebuild? "But tell me, where did you hear that name?"

Tony's caught him off guard once, but it won't happen again.

[starkingenuity]

((I have been known to dabble in FrostIron))

It will happen again because of the man that Tony Stark is. He’s tenacious, though not always in a good way. When he knows he has the upper hand, as long as nothing distracts him lime a dog with a bone seeing a squirrel up in the tree, he’s not about to let go. Loki’s surprise is telling. Thanos sent him, he knows that already, and given the way that Loki looks right now, it’s not a good relationship that they have. Loki might not fear them, but he does fear Thanos. Maybe he’s in a cult? Maybe that’s where Thor’s brother went wrong? Tony doesn’t know the supposed God of Thunder well enough to know his history and he and Steve didn’t take the detour they should have to discuss Loki with the other blond.

Their bad. Luckily, Tony’s often gone into situations where he doesn’t know everything. He has a way of coming out on top just the same.

Tony puts together pieces in this puzzle in a way only his mind can. Compartmentalized options move and shift until they find their place and he constructs a sort of narrative others might not. He’s decided that if this guy Thanos wants to destroy half, but not all of the universe, it means that he believes himself to be on a holy quest. He’s sent Loki to collect the Tesseract. Why hasn’t Loki just stolen it and left? Well, that might have to do with the fact that Thor had been here before and Loki and Thor have some weird, unfinished business to attend. That means that Loki is a little off of his leash.

And that Loki might actually be afraid of Thanos. Tony can work with all of that, even if only parts of it is true.

“Who doesn’t know Thanos?” Except for everyone. “We’ve been waiting for him for a long time. Thought he’d come himself and not send you, but whatever. What do you think we can trade him for you so he’ll hurry up and see us?”

Let Loki think that they’re nuts, like a planet full of death cultists. He’s got a feeling that Loki likes crazy, something to match him. Tony can give him that.

[shieldborne]

((Well, I might have to think of a journal name here. His dialogue is fun to write.))

Banner's observation was acute; Loki's mind is certainly not operating within stable parameters of late. Still, it's less like a bag of cats than an undersea cavern, submerged in bitter cold and crushing darkness, labyrinthine, and full of biting eels and worse things that are better left buried. If Tony can keep up with the twists and turns, he's a far more pitiable figure than the god anticipated. Time will tell.

He's regained some of his control now, although his mind is racing as he wonders where and how they have heard of Thanos. Thor couldn't possibly know. If there has been some other contact with this world that's preceded his own attempt at conquest, Loki may well have been double-crossed.

In point of fact, he has encountered Thanos face to face precisely once, and it was enough. His introduction, his patronage, his training, as it were, has all come through the Other, one of the members of Thanos' Black Order. Perhaps the most fanatic of the lot. Loki hasn't seen dissent among Thanos' underlings, but it's always possible. Anything is possible, where politics and power are concerned. It may be that the Other is the one that's being double-crossed. If, of course, Stark's assertions are true.

A puzzle to consider. A very dangerous one. Loki tilts his head quizzically, eyelids half lowering as he regards Stark through the glass. Certainly, Thanos has collected a cultlike following; the idea that this man might wish to join it strikes him as inconsistent with what he knows of him. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

"He desires nothing from you save your death. As I said, parley is useless. You have no means of negotiation." Which isn't entirely true. They do have the Infinity Stones. Sort of. Loki has the Tesseract, and the Mind Stone is close enough it may as well be in his hand.

He takes a step away, turning his back to Tony, strolling in a small circle as if considering. A moment later, he glances back over his shoulder. "Or perhaps that is your sole desire. To watch your world burn and burn with it? Extraordinary. They did call you the Merchant of Death once, I am told. Your own designs, did they not satisfy your appetite to create suffering?"

[starkingenuity]

To Tony’s credit, he does not flinch when Loki dredges up his past. He doesn’t know how the alien has access to that information, but he doesn’t need to. Reporters and journalists have been priming him for this very moment for years now. They have no been kind to him when it comes to bringing up the contracts he used to have. And he doesn’t blame them for that. He hadn’t been an evil man, but he hadn’t been a very good one either. It haunts him, the knowledge of the people he’s hurt. It haunts him more that it had taken him this long to feel that guilt too.

So he shrugs. He leans on the hulk cage, resting on his shoulder, and looks fully disinterested in what Loki’s trying to say here. “Not really. I get that I might be in the half of the population that gets destroyed, but I might be in the half that doesn’t. Those are better odds than I usually give myself.”

His smile isn’t nice, but it doesn’t mirror Loki’s.

“If you know about me, you know about this planet. We’re overcrowded. We kill each other over ideologies and resources. Know what would make this place better? A cleansing. What you’re doing here? It’s fine. It’s not enough. We’ve been waiting for Thanos for a long time.” You’re nothing to him, Loki. That’s what that smile says.

((recycling an old journal name here))

[coldsong]

Loki has his sources. Barton is one of them, Selvig another, but it's not difficult to pick up information regarding one Anthony Edward Stark. The jab he's just aimed at him could easily have been informed by a trip to the local library to go through old periodicals (it wasn't, but it could have been). It isn't a secret, but he had thought it would be a sore spot. Men like Stark, though, keep their sore spots well-armored. A pity.

Meanwhile, the comment about half the population tells him a bit more about how much Iron Man knows. He is not, apparently, just whistling in the dark. "I see," he says, and saunters back up the clear panel between them, leaning one palm against it. "And what of your dear Captain? Does he share your point of view, your desire to cleanse this world?"

Loki is somewhat ambivalent, where the human population is concerned. Thor cares about Midgard, and that is the primary reason the place has Loki's attention, although he can hardly disapprove of the humans that still tell stories of him and his kin. Words have a power all their own, and if anyone will speak of his exploits with awe or delight, he'll take the nourishment to his ego. Asgard, on the other hand--there have been times Loki would have liked to tear it down with his own hands, but regardless of his rage, it is his home, and rightfully his kingdom. Thanos won't be laying waste to it, if he can prevent it.

One world might prove sufficient leverage to defend the other. He's not certain how yet, is all.