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Crackship of the day #021 (5/11/19)
Paler horse fuckers (Robin “Puck” Goodfellow X Loki)
“You fly around in gaudy red-and-gold armor.” wait is loki's armor green or red? @_@
O_O ... Oops. Well shit. The answer is "green and gold" but apparently I momentarily forgot that.
I'll be fixing that shortly. Role-reversals are tricky, at times.
Making of: Pernicious Prompting - Dangerous Animals
That sad moment when the scene has just gotten to the sex, but you realise it's past 1am and your eyes won't stay open long enough for you to write it.
Goddammit. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, then.
Fic: Dangerous Animals - Part VI
Title: Dangerous Animals - Part VI
Rating: Not Obscene
Word Count: about 10,300-ish
Warnings: Flagrant amorality, varying degrees of psychosis, a bit of sex and a lot of snark. Welcome to the S. S. Frostiron.
Summary: Anton "Tony" Stark is the Norse god of mischief and Xanatos gambits. Loki Farbautisson is a genius, millionaire, playboy, philanthropist with a sportsman-like appreciation of a worthy opponent. When Anton steals the tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. and kicks off the first attempt to actually launch the Avengers initiative, worlds proceed to collide. In this part of the aftermath, there are plans within plans and plays within plays, and Loki really knows how to make an exit––in theory. Also On AO3.
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|Part I : Part II : Part III : Part IV: Part V: Part VI| ___________________________________________________
In the matter of summonings, Anton Howartsson was possessed of a unique degree of understanding with a certain queen of Nornheim. They were both powerful, sneaky, and creative enough to snare one another with a summon and drag said other to stand before them, even (moreso for the queen than for the trickster, who lacked quite such powerful resources as the Norn Stones) if they had to drag them between realms. Given how mutual the inconvenience was, they long ago had a few agreements carefully arranged concerning a summoning; the first of which was the warning, and a measure of time after it equal to roughly forty-eight seconds by Midgardian standards, during which the one being summoned had a chance to make themselves decent, even if only with a few strong illusions.
When Tony awoke to an all-too familiar red-violet seal hovering off to his left in the dark of Loki Farbautisson’s bedroom, he very quietly swore a blue streak that might have made even Odin blush, then disentangled himself from the mortal genuis’ all-too-comfortable embrace––careful not to wake him––and got to his feet, summoning clothing and armor back into place just before the pool of light around the glowing seal and all its sigils began to coalesce. Tony placed a quick silencing spell around the perimeter, to muffle the inevitable cacophony to ensue when the summoning took him away. The coalescence made shadows over his skin, first thin and delicate, then thickening, until the sight of him was blotted out, all remaining color dragged into the heart of the seal, which then promptly vanished.
With a resounding, crackling boom, Tony landed on stone floor at the foot of a large and familiar throne, gasping slightly, but keeping his feet, much to his summoner’s disappointment. He knew, of course, she had wanted to see him stumble and kneel before her, however briefly. The first time she’d dragged him from another realm using the Norn Stones as well as her own more usual powers, Tony had indeed made that mistake; he had no plans to ever repeat it.
“I was asleep, you know,” the god of mischief bit out.
“Greet me properly, little princeling, or I’ll roast you where you stand,” the lady in the throne before him warned. There were several stone-carved steps between trickster and Queen of Nornheim, and as such she easily loomed over him, and indeed the whole impressive chamber, merely by lifting her chin just so.
Tony cocked his head to one side, folding his arms across his chest. “Dear Queen Karnilla of Nornheim, I do doubt you would waste me so. I’m far more useful uncharred and less annoyed,” he challenged. He would not bow, he would not salute; she was not his queen and if not for one or two millennia more experience and a few particularly potent artifacts in her possession, he would come very close to matching her in mastery of magic. “Why have you called me?”
Karnilla smiled thinly. “Good to see you still so stubbornly defiant toward someone.” She rose to her feet with easy, fluid grace. She wore armor more ceremonial than altogether practical, but she hardly needed armor, especially not with the glow of excess power still rolling off of her from the summoning. It trailed behind her like a cape of ghostly flames as she descended the steps to approach him. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes darker still, and her figure prone to causing men, and some women, to have thoughts just as dark. “I had begun to worry you might have grown tame, little trickster.” She was beautiful, younger than Frigga in appearance but closer to her equal in age than to Tony’s, and taller than the god of mischief by at least two inches without her boots, and closer to four inches with them. “And oh what a pity that would be,” she concluded, as she stood before him with slightly narrowed eyes: shrewd, apprising, dangerously practical and astute. It was not without reason she had ruled an independent kingdom within the same realm as Asgard for so long, unchallenged and troublesome and unconquerable.
The god of mischief held her gaze steadily, reading her in turn, finding suspicion, distrust, and precariously intent curiosity. He offered a wide smile full of teeth. “I am tame as you ever are; less so, perhaps, given how free I am to wander outside my chosen kingdom.”
Karnilla arched a brow at that. “Your chosen kingdom,” she repeated, as though testing the words. “What an interesting phrase. I suppose it only makes sense, you would have to chose one after betraying your given one-”
“Oh, I betrayed my given kingdom shortly after my birth. Only recently did that get made clear, but you haven’t heard?” He grinned fiercely. “Well, I won’t spoil it for you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You seem colder than before, Anton.”
“And you seem warmer. Have I at last caught your more tender affections?”
She snorted at him, examining him head-to-toe with a distinctly unimpressed expression. “Hardly.”
“Then you must be really bored, if I’m of such interest to you, all of a sudden.”
“You fell into the void, little trickster.”
Tony fell silent, his expression a careful blank. He raised his eyebrows in a bored but questioning manner.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the bits and baubles your father has hidden, scattered all across the realms, but so many in Midgard! One might think he well and truly wants to incite them to world-ending wars with such dangerous little civilization-warming gifts,” Karnilla mused. “I hadn’t been able to keep track of the tesseract, however, much to my disappointment. It would be of great benefit to my kingdom: almost a fit weapon against the Odinforce, if such became absolutely necessary one day.”
The trickster felt his skin prickle at the thought of what sort of war might require such a feat. There were times, now and again, that Karnilla was capable of deeply disturbing him, and that little tidbit easily made it into the top ten. “I’m very glad you lost your chance at it, then,” he said dryly.
The queen shot him a glare, reached out across the arm’s length of distance between them, and tapped the underside of his chin with one fingertip, just firmly enough to tip his head back slightly even as he instinctively pulled back with a noise like a snarl. “So instead you sought to fetch it for some other.” She stepped closer, threatening this time. “Furthermore, as the uproar of rumors surrounding your trial suggest, it was that awful legendary half-wit Thanos, who fancies himself in love with one Mistress Death.”
Taking on a thoughtful mien in response to her venom, Tony asked lightly, with deliberate carelessness, “Ooh, you sound nice and spiteful now. Did he jilt you, or did she?”
Karnilla snorted. “I have far better taste in lovers than to lust after a mad Titan or Death herself. While Mistress Death may be lovely to look upon, I prefer my bedmates vocal, as you may recall.”
Tony winced at the memory of incident #47 on their list of reasons why the warning-before-summoning arrangement need be put in place. “Please, don’t remind me. I’d just managed to forget.”
“As I recall you were hardly disgusted.”
“I was also hardly interested,” he shot back.
“Is that meant to be your infamous Silver-tongue at work? I hardly see what all the fuss is about,” Karnilla returned.
“Nor will you. It’s reserved for more captivating personages than yourself,” Tony riposted, droll and bored-sounding. “You’re trying to annoy me into dropping my guard a little, but this is hardly the way to go about it. Try direct questions and catching me in a lie, that might work.”
She glared at him in silence for a long moment, anger darkening her expression considerably. “I do wonder, at times, why I don’t just behead you and spare myself the trouble, trickster.”
“Well, in this case, the All-Father only just retrieved me from the abyss, from a shockingly dangerous and twisted debacle wherein one Thanos was concerned, and I’ve spent some while appearing as well-behaved as it might be possible for me to appear, and not too suspiciously so. Kill me now, and you’re really just asking for violent retaliation from the halls of Asgard, all focused upon you.” His eyebrows slowly raised. “Now will you get to the damn point?”
“You haveindeed been so awfully well-behaved, of late,” Karnilla mused. “I’m hardly the sort to find that reassuring, and if I suspect you have trouble brewing behind your illusory repentance, then you know others are watching even closer, but you hide it well. No one has any idea what trick you’ll pull next. I can’t help but think that you have several somethings up your sleeve and at least one of them is vast in its importance.”
Tony offered a razor-thin smile that did not reach his eyes. “Oh dear, you want an alliance? I’m so flattered.”
She began to circle him, without haste and without apparent concern as to how he might react as two of her fingertips, cooler than those of the average Asgardian, but still warmer than Anton just now, dragged across his left temple. “What all did you bring back from the void, little trickster? To what purpose?” She smiled a little to see the tension in his spine and the stiffness of his shoulders. “I can feel traces of pockmarks and deep hooks, where your dread armor was pierced, and that armor keeps even me out. I have to wonder how much of them was left behind to afflict your little brain.”
As she rounded his other side, Tony’s hand snapped out to seize her wrist before her idle touch could reach his other temple. He turned to glare at her, his anger all made of ice and darkness, and he saw something like disconcertion flare in her gaze as that cold numbed her skin where they touched. “Do not dare,” he snapped. “Not unless you wish me to unleash the knowledge of such horrors upon you, in your turn.” He grinned unpleasantly. “You have to ask yourself how much you really want to see.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So it was the void, then. Not Thanos’ claws. Is that why you’re so content with Odin’s forgiveness, even after he let you fall–AH!” She pulled her hand away sharply, glaring at him in disbelief as she looked at the skin of her freed wrist, and the fast-healing frostbite thereupon. Confusion marred her brow. “Who are you?”
“You summoned me,” Tony challenged. “I am who I have always been, only a little altered by my recent travels, among other things.”
“No Aesir has a touch like that.”
“I do.” The god of mischief grinned at her, wide and threatening. “You would do well not to underestimate my capabilities, that much is clear. I’m not limited to meeting your expectations, no matter how that might hurt your pride.”
“You play dangerously.”
“Always. It’s one of my many charms.”
Karnilla stepped closer again. “You play with stones from a familiar quarry, as well. To what purpose, I must wonder? Even all gathered together they hardly have a fraction of the Norn Stones’ power.”
“Conduit,” Tony said, without any further elaboration: his only straight answer, and the only one she was likely to get.
At that, the queen paused to consider. “Powered by what?” The god of mischief’s grin only grew wider. “Now, why should I ruin the surprise?”
“Because I will otherwise pull at your limbs when you least expect it.” She touched his chin again, and this time when he went to pull away, he couldn’t move. “When you hold a knife, or any weapon really, in the presence of a person fragile enough to be killed by it.” She gripped his chin hard. “Do you think I have no connection to those stones you meddle with? The more you toy with them, the more they attune to you, and the more they conduct my power, as I possess the very heart of them.”
Tony’s expression again went utterly blank. “What is it you wish to hear, I wonder? Are you hoping I will confess to some intention to steal the Norn Stones myself for use, or are you hoping I’ll let you in on my secrets for once, and you’ll have cracked me open with all the grace of a heavy club crushing a complex locking mechanism? Oh, how brilliant you must feel,” he drawled, sarcasm dripping.
“Do not test me. What is your game with those stones?”
Making a show of almost petulant reluctance, Tony said sharply, “I’m courting a rather different power source.” It was one of his better lies, not only because it was believable, but because it was actually one of his Plan C options: not the most practical, not very satisfactory, but workable. “If you must know. I plan to conquer one of my would-be conquerors in the process, and precious matriarch of Nornheim you may be, you do not qualify as one who has ever come half so close to conquering me.”
Karnilla sneered a little, but hardly argued. She did, however, notice the array of bite-marks on his neck, and began to smirk. “I did wonder why you were in Midgard, and sleeping there no less. Oh, that is quite charming. You’ve caught one of these so-called ‘Avengers’ then. That does sound like you.”
Tony made sure that the burn of his level, unflinching and wrathful glare did not wane even as he fought the urge to smirk. “I’ve hardly seduced many of my targets. Don’t confuse my methods with yours.”
“I seduce as often as men fall for it, which they so often do, but I hardly let them get close enough to do much about it.” She released his chin to run a fingertip down his throat, over the light bruising left by a certain mad genius of Midgard. “I know better than to let them close. You ought to be careful that you don’t wind up conquered again, in an entirely different manner.”
At that, the god of mischief couldn’t help but sneer. “Do I look like Thor?”
“Not much at all,” Karnilla mused, thoughtful and airy.
Tony managed not to wince, but just barely. “Would you mind letting up on your restraints? I have business to attend to, thanks very much.”
Laughing softly, the queen let him go.
Rolling his shoulders and shaking out his arms briefly, the god of mischief straightened up and rested his weight back on his heels––away from her. “You will not find such an opening again.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” Karnilla mused. “But the look on your face was quite worth it, and you can’t be always on your guard. I do not threaten; I promise, as you know, and as I understand it, even an accidental death caused by your hand will bring the full wrath of every enemy you’ve ever made down upon you.” She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Keep your games out of Nornheim, trickster,” she said, as she always did.
“And you keep your claws out of my schemes, Karnilla,” Tony shot back, as he always did in his turn. Then he vanished by his own means with a louder-than-necessary burst of crackling sound.
~~
Puzzle pieces, wheels within wheels and plans within plans. Tony stared out over the edge of the rainbow bridge, deep in thought, as though he could see as far as Heimdall, who’d thankfully had the sense, as was now habit for the watcher these days, to leave the trickster in peace as he worked on repairs.
Not that he was doing such repair work now. No, now he was contemplating angles, leverage, tricks and traps. He had two moderately dangerous challengers in the wings, who might pose him problems later, and one surprisingly thorny challenge right before him. Karnilla would overestimate the mortal’s value, just as Malekith had, but should she choose to do something about it, she would not be half so foolish as the elf had been in all his haste. She knew better than to involve herself directly; she would send some of her subjects, or a monster she had recently ensnared.
And how, the god of mischief mused, would the mortal handle that? As ruthlessly as ever, at a guess, Tony couldn’t help but assume.
That was presuming Karnilla bothered, the trickster acknowledged. It was unlikely; she would want to watch and see if her favorite pain-in-the-ass trickster actually got attached at all, in any genuinely exploitable fashion. For that, she would have to wait and let the games play out further. Her eye would turn toward him more frequently, now, looking for a bond she could send her subjects to trample.
Anton was a master of the play-within-a-play mentality. Karnilla thought herself a voyeur, part of a very small audience, when in fact she was on stage with him. To catch the conscience manipulative vanity of the king queen. It was all a matter of smoke and mirrors, and tricks and traps, all tangled up in his web.
The trickster juggled his plans for each player/chess-piece with ease, pausing here and there to examine the progress to be gleaned from one to the next. It was all well and good until he got to the ones that stung and burned at him: Thor less so than before, but Odin remained less certain, just as Tony’s intentions toward him remained uncertain. The desire to lash out, and cause pain, still lingered, but it had dulled a great deal since his return to Asgard in chains. He couldn’t help but muse, with reluctant admiration, that while Anton the trickster twisted people up and broke them with words, Odin All-Father had a way of rebuilding and strengthening them, while also making them love him for it, in most cases. Damn him.
Factoring Karnilla’s sudden increased scrutiny into his plans did change the shape of them, in several little ways, making the structure overall more precarious, such that the god of mischief couldn’t help but scowl at it. He was insane, and enjoyed a convoluted plan as well as the next mad god, but he was not that impractical.
And then, as it was wont to do, inspiration welled up and the plans coalesced into something new and even more interesting. Bait and switch.
Slowly, Tony began to grin.
“One more cup, then,” he murmured. “One more card, one more variable. Hmm.” He glanced toward earth. “I suppose they can’t all be freebies. I’ll have to make the last one, I think, or find them.”
~~
A few hours later, the god of lies and mischief appeared in Loki Farbautisson’s private lab in Avengers’ tower. The AI gave a low, but inoffensive alert sound: the digital equivalent of throat-clearing in a warning, pointed fashion.
“Mr. Howartsson-”
“Oh, now now, JARVIS: you’re the only one who calls me Stark, no matter how I plead and cajole. Don’t you give up on me too,” he chimed.
With drollness that bordered on offensive, JARVIS continued, “Mr. Stark, I am authorized to give you two warnings before sounding off every alarm in the tower to indicate your presence here, and initiate Mischief Management protocols and full lockdown to keep you here until your inevitable capture. This is the first of them.”
Tony considered. “And how exactly might I prevent that from occurring?”
“By leaving, or by having Mr. Farbautisson override the commands. You have three-hundred and sixty seconds to choose.”
Touchy, the trickster noted, with some approval. It suited the mad inventor perfectly. “Well, then, if you insist: where exactly is Loki? I can see about bringing him here, if you can give me a place to start.”
A pause. “I am unable to find him at present.”
At that, Tony blinked. “You can’t find him,” he repeated. “Doesn’t he usually have you incorporated into that device that he keeps in his pocket at all times, as well as his various lodgings and workplaces?”
“He does, but the part of my system kept close about Mr. Farbautisson’s person has been unreachable for some hours now. I am aiding the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. in attempts to track him down.”
“If I aid in that, do I get a bit more time before you set off the alarms?” Tony offered, hoping the mad inventor had foresight enough to give the AI either protocols relevant to such situations, or the authority to make certain judgement calls independent of its maker.
Every display in the lab, of which there were perhaps a dozen, flickered to life briefly, then turned back off. “If you make any too sudden moves, make any attempts to block my monitoring of you or any of the systems in this room suited to your containment, then you will be trapped here, and you will not be in top shape by the time the Avengers arrive to collect you.”
Tony had never in his very long life considered that mortal machinery might be capable of intimidating him in the least, but he felt himself steadily gaining new respect for JARVIS quite independent of his regard for Loki Farbautisson. While Loki had clearly built JARVIS to particular specifications, incorporating certain quirks allowing for personality, he had also allowed for natural growth, in the way that human intelligence forms naturally by building upon experience and pattern-recognition. The inventor then had the wisdom to let go, and allow JARVIS enough room to grow and develop independently––such that the AI truly, particularly at the present moment, seemed quite alive in its way.
“You have my word that I will not interfere with anything that would mitigate your threats. I merely have some questions, to start off. I don’t even need to touch anything, or use any magic yet,” Tony assured. “How did this all start?”
JARVIS relayed Happy Hogan’s description of how Loki had vanished, seemingly into thin air, whilst looking deeply perturbed by the event as it occurred.
For reasons the god of mischief was not inclined to examine too closely, his pulse quickened, and his vision sharpened as it tended to once adrenaline hit and hit hard. “Did you get any scans?”
“It happened quickly, and I have few such sensors on that part of the building’s exterior. I could glean little; however, S.H.I.E.L.D. was quick to call in their preferred consulting magician-”
Tony snorted.
“-one Doctor Steven Strange.”
That gave the god of mischief momentary pause. The name rang a few distant bells. “Steven Strange,” he muttered. “Loki mentioned Strange before, but I hadn’t given thought to the man...”
“You were distracted by Mr. Farbautisson’s... daring.”
Tilting his head a little, Tony stared ceiling-ward, momentarily caught between being deeply annoyed, and frankly impressed by the concept of an AI capable of such subtle discernment as must be necessary to convey droll sarcasm in such a dry mostly-polite manner. “Stop impressing me. It’s distracting.”
“I will try my level best, Mr. Stark.”
More sarcasm. Damn the thing. “Steven Strange. Does he perhaps go by another title other than ‘Doctor’?”
“He is also called ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ according to his file.”
Tony made a face. “Oh, him. Mortal upstart who impressed some old god-like creatures on the astral plane,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. That said, it’s best to tread carefully around him, he mused silently; although he would never admit as much aloud. “What did he observe?”
“That you were not the culprit, nor anyone from your realm.”
Some of Tony’s inexplicable dismay at last had the decency to change into curiosity and intrigue, then. “Oh, really?”
“He suggested that Mr. Farbautisson was most likely captured by a terrestrial threat armed with extraterrestrial weaponry. The threat in question is a man, a human by all accounts, usually called ‘M’, among other more exotic appellations. Dr. Strange further remarked that M was likely provoked by Mr. Farbautisson’s sudden interest in him. I’ve since found evidence to support this.”
“What sort of evidence?”
“Particular viruses quietly lurking in the communication equipment belonging to Clint Barton and Director Fury, both of whom are recently returned from field missions which took them through M’s territory, leaving them open to being tracked and their digital communications intercepted and infected by the Ten Rings. I am still working with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s systems to eradicate the resultant plague, but keeping myself from becoming afflicted has proven more difficult than anticipated. I will require a good deal of review by Mr. Farbautisson once we find him, to make sure that I am not also compromised.”
“Ten Rings,” Tony mused. “I recall mention of them from certain files of Loki’s, particularly the bits to do with the arc reactor and how it found itself embedded in his chest, right?”
“They were involved, yes.”
Slowly, Tony began to grin. “I suppose Strange tried and failed to track the spell that caught up Farbautisson?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then.” The god of mischief rubbed his hands together and closed his eyes, focusing, as his fingers plucked at invisible, mostly-intangible strings: hidden strings, not accessible to most, but with years of practice and a deep well of natural talent, they could do all sorts of things. Magic was like that. Tony plucked, and listened to them hum, caught one or two and crossed them, tugged them, wove a bit with them. “He’s clearly still got a great deal to learn.”
Uncomfortably aware of the AI watching, scanning, collecting data as he worked, Tony pulled from methods older than the earth, and others far newer and younger, bringing them together and reconciling them while also leaving enough chaos for them to provide just the right dissonance: loud and harsh and bristling. He reached out and tapped someone far away and felt them startle. The dissonance would prevent Strange recognizing from whom that little power-draw love-tap had come from. Then reeling his attention back to a location physically closer to him, Tony’s awareness focused on ground level around Stark Tower, and caught faint whispers of the spell, already looking worn away, but not quite gone, and not worn enough that he couldn’t extrapolate a few things. It was an unusual signature, but not wholly unfamiliar, though furrows of unease marred the trickster’s brow as he recognized it. “JARVIS, I have given my word not to interfere with certain of your systems-”
“You keep your word to mortals and immortals––organic forms of sentience. Your ability to break promises to machines is still unknown,” the AI cut in.
Tony considered. “Actually, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And I am certain I believe every word that leaves your mouth. It would truly be remiss of me to suspect that might be a dishonest statement.”
The god of mischief snorted. “That jibe was a bit heavy-handed, by your standards. I was about to ask whether there might be a bit of compromised tech around here that you might let me scan instead of scanning you?”
A tablet on the nearest work table flickered to life, dully at first, then bright as it came fully to life. A rather less advanced robot picked it up and carried it over to the trickster, who took it without opening his eyes.
“I have uploaded a file containing an exact copy of all material from Clint Barton’s compromised mobile phone onto it, but left the tablet itself now unable to communicate, wirelessly or otherwise, with any devices in this lab,” JARVIS explained.
The newer spells Tony had brought into the mix were very good at pattern recognition, and they made the god of mischief’s eyes glow like embers when he opened them to stare and began manipulating the tablet, pausing to trace the occasional sigil on the back of it, leaving behind a faint red-gold glow that faded fast. Soon the screen flickered to black, then the myriad colors of a damaged display, and finally a pure burning gold to match Tony’s glowing gaze and fingertips. There, he thought. Not quite as hard as a living brain: even a simple one. Still clever: very clever.
Slowly, the god of mischief began to smile. “Found you.” Then his expression fell as a familiar charge filled the air: draining and prickling and uncomfortable. “Dammit.”
“I strongly recommend that you share that knowledge before you attempt to vanish,” the AI reminded.
“You’re far too good at this,” Tony snapped, finally outright annoyed.
“I’ve had years of experience observing, aiding, and learning from Loki Farbautisson,” JARVIS chided. “I know a great deal about liars, Mr. Stark.”
The trickster was impressed, irritated, and distressed in equal measure. Tucking the still-glowing, spell-infused tablet under one arm, he strode up to a large display panel. “Then get me a map. I haven’t got all day.”
The display lit up with a world map.
Tony eyed it, reconciling it with his own mental map of this planet, and the results of his spellcasting labors. He settled two fingers on the screen, one in the middle of central Europe, the other in the general region of Pakistan. He tugged each finger in opposite directions, zooming in until he could get a better look at the stretches of land between the two points. Twice more he zoomed in, and zoomed in a bit further, until a particular warehouse district, very isolated but suspiciously well-kept, in Syria but not too far from the borders of Iraq and Jordan. There was only one rugged-looking road leading to it: obscure, and not marked in any databases with maps of the region. It was also suspiciously absent from aerial surveys over the past decade. Even now, Stark Industries satellite views had trouble keeping a lock on the area.
“There is a faint sort of illusion field over the place,” JARVIS stated.
“I’m aware. Now that you are, too, and can mostly see through it, you can consider how you plan to mention to the others that you found a possible lead. Can you come up with a clever lie that doesn’t involve me?”
“I did mention making study of Mr. Farbautisson over the years, didn’t I?”
“Good. Let up on that damn field now, will you?”
JARVIS obliged.
Tony huffed slightly, annoyed as a feline prodded out of its perfectly comfortable sunbeam, vanished the tablet up his sleeve, then vanished himself from the lab entirely.
~~
Upon his landing, shortly after vanishing from the sidewalk outside his own tower in New York, off-balance and a bit nauseous but still with his feet under him and sheer force of will keeping him upright, Loki Farbautisson took in his surroundings and tried to catch his breath. He changed position, settling into a subtle fighting-stance as soon as he remembered how his legs worked.
Dizziness kept him otherwise very still, for fear he would simply fall over otherwise. His stomach lurched, and his head ached.
He was in the middle of a large, mostly-empty warehouse, and he could smell desert: not the same desert that occasionally drifted through his nightmares, but desert nevertheless. No sand dunes too nearby most likely, but a lot of scrub and not much water. The desert air came in through the broken glass of window high on the west wall of the place. Loki could see that while the glass was broken, there were still metal bars there, assuring him that no escape-by-defenestration would be the easiest of actions to take. He uncurled his hands from the fists they had formed at his sides, and stretched his fingers wide before slowly closing them again, more relaxed this time––more in control, just like his breathing.
With slow deliberation, he let his eyes scan the room, and paid attention to how the air felt on his skin. Distantly, it occurred to him that while he could hear and smell desert wind in the air, he couldn’t feel it in the air around him. Then something caught his eye that didn’t sit right: especially not after over a year spent as an Avenger. He’d not been caught up by any of their psychically-talented foes yet, but there was a first time for everything. As his eyes moved but his head remained still, he fixed his gaze just to the left of straight-ahead, and focused on his peripheral vision. That window isn’t broken. It was broken: now it’s not.
“Shit,” Loki muttered, and fumbled for every suggestion he’d ever heard for evading or overcoming psychic influence. It would help, he reflected, if he’d been more than half-listening, and had actually practiced, but he was still Loki Farbautisson, and therefore a ridiculously quick study.
His head filled with equations, mostly obscure, and certainly none to do with his technology. Most of it was astrophysics, borrowed from reports of Dr. Jane Foster’s he’d reluctantly reviewed last week. As he did so, he kept his gaze fixed on distant objects while focusing his actual attention on his peripheral vision. He heard disconcerting laughter from behind him and snorted. “Isn’t cackling in the dark generally passe these days, even by super-villain standards?”
Then it occurred to him: when had it started getting so dark over there? He couldn’t recall, and that disturbed him enough for him to start throwing in schematics for a few of his old hot-rods––just the ones that had been destroyed in Iron Man-related incidents, not any of the current ones––along with all of the math. Thinking in multiple directions at once about three or more subjects was something of a specialty of his, so he wasn’t quite straining himself yet.
“I can’t actually read your mind, you know.”
Loki resisted the urge to feel relieved, and reminded himself not to trust a damn thing anyone said, even while looking them in the eye and almost-believing them. There were very few exceptions to that rule, and it was clear that none of them were present. Loki thus doubted freely. “Pardon me if I don’t take your word for it, since you seem able to make me hallucinate.”
A low laugh. This time, it matched the cultured voice with the impossible-to-place accent, rather than the slightly more unnerving not-quite-human one from moments before––the first laugh had been oddly sibilant, almost reptilian. “You’re very sharp, but that’s hardly surprising. You’re Loki Farbautisson, Iron Man, the genius personally responsible for ‘privatizing world peace’ and all the rest.”
The genius turned to face the voice, or thought he did. His perspective changed, what his eyes saw changed, but there was no feeling of movement, and after so much time spent tuning the Iron Man suit to his every move and gesture, Loki had very keen awareness of his own spatial orientation. He hadn’t moved, but everything else had.
“Oh, you clever son of a bitch,” Loki muttered, this time shredding at the scenery the way he sometimes shredded his way out of some of his nightmares––with echoes of fighting his way out of caves that smelled of smoke and blood. He felt something in the environment around him recoil violently, and reached for it with palms aglow and missiles bristling from his arms and shoulders like a hawk’s feathers standing on end or a cat’s claws extending: the weapons were part of him, he knew them, he knew what they could do and he could use them here too, just watch and s-
It shattered. The whole world of illusion fractured and collapsed with a sound like an infuriated roar: definitely with a bit of inhuman in it, deep and all but hissing.
Loki’s eyes snapped open and he gasped, sitting up sharply and staring around him. He was in a cell, and his limbs were bound, but they hadn’t even removed his suit jacket, let alone unbuttoned his shirt-cuffs to, say, expose what might be worn on his wrists, which made him slowly grin. Then he heard sudden loud and hasty noises down the hall, far too close, and the grin took on a slightly panicked, manic edge.
At some point, Loki would later reflect, people––particularly the Ten Rings––would finally figure out that the very last thing one should do with Iron Man is presume that he can be restrained. And then he’d be royally screwed, but until then? Oh, until then...
The mad genius tugged hard at his left wrist and winced when one or two things twisted in ways they shouldn’t, but he could feel one of the Mark VII bracelets catch on the rope, through his sleeve. He’d added one or two features to them, at Natasha’s suggestion, and he’d never been happier to have taken advice from the Avengers’ resident super-spy and assassin. “JARVIS?”
A low beep from in his pocket. Limited capability, then. Connection to most of his AI’s personality and globe-spanning intellect was gone, along with all other outgoing communications, at a guess. Well, then. Local it is. “Activate the field generator first: all capacities. Unless someone is looking at me with a human eyeball, I want there to at least be some static.” He glanced pointedly at the nearest security camera and its leering, solid red light.
Another low, positive-beep.
Loki shook his head as the air around him felt suddenly depressurized and his ears popped. “Ow.” The security camera’s red light now flickered intermittently, along with the rest of the lights in the room, at first. Well, hiding the thing up his sleeve had turned out to be a good idea. Having it connected by thin wires to the arc reactor, so it seemed, had been a still greater stroke of genius. “I really will have to test that on S.H.I.E.L.D. as planned, someday.”
Promptly, every alarm in the building, and probably all surrounding buildings as well, went off: loud and shrill and painful and impossible to ignore. Loki rolled his eyes.
“Okay. Now, JARVIS, let’s test out the bracelets and their new tricks. Cue small, very focused energy pulse on the left one, angled to hit the rope.”
A low pop followed, along with a burning sensation. Loki bit his tongue as the rope and his sleeve-cuff both caught fire, but the pulse had taken out more than half the width of one rope-coil, and with a few solid yanks he was mobile enough to roll over and smother the flames bodily, but it wasn’t pretty, and did indeed hurt like a bitch.
Straightening quickly, he got his injured arm free and unbound his other one hastily. By the time the doors to his little interrogation cell burst open, Loki had already pulled an ever-present high-tech multi-tool from his trouser pocket, cut himself free of all remaining bonds and positioned himself such that he was behind the left-hand door, which he caught and slowed just before it hit his face.
“He can’t have just vanished!” snapped a now-familiar voice over one of the men’s radios.
Loki smiled brightly. Oh, Mr. M, that’s what you think.
“He hasn’t left the room. Sensors in the doors and at all air vents remained unaffected before you all entered.”
Loki watched the three men slowly proceed into the room, their backs to him, and took this opportunity to slip out the door.
“Errors and loss of connection to sensors in the doors! Follow him!” he heard, faintly, before the doors fully shut. Loki promptly took off at a run, hallway lights and security camera power-lights flickering around him like mad as he passed. He knew they would isolate him with that soon enough, but for the moment, it was causing chaos, which he heartily approved of.
Eventually he realized he was in a warehouse, as the hallucination had suggested, but in a newly-converted administrative portion full of smaller rooms and offices and hallways, rather than a large empty storage space. Engineering and architectural deductive logic took over from there, and he quickly worked out the most important details: where three nearest exits were likely to be, and where the building’s security hub should be: cool, protected, not easy to get to, just southeast of the very heart of the building.
He considered aiming for that, but recalled who he was working with. If it were me, he mused, I’d have one hub for over a dozen buildings, and false ones throughout. Best not to risk it. Loki instead headed for the first-closest exit he could confirm, and ran into a few armed guards upon rounding the corner right in front of it. They could definitely see him, with their shrewd little human eyeballs. The inventor raised his hands in the air and smiled charmingly. “Hello, boys. How are you this evening?” He took two small, seemingly stumbling steps back so he stood in the middle of a four-way intersection of corridors: brutes before him, alarms behind him, and potential escape left and right of him.
They paused, just bemused enough to give Loki time to mutter: “Focused pulse, right wrist, aim for the grenade on the far right one’s hip!”
There was another pop, and Loki dove immediately down the leftward arm of the hall he’d originally emerged from, putting enough distance between himself and the blast to protect him bodily, but his ears were left ringing so loud it made his vision hum blurrily with it in sympathy. He couldn’t even hear himself swearing at first, as he pulled himself to his feet and considered exactly how likely the Ten Rings’ average goons would be to run toward that sort of explosion. He gave himself a thirty-second window to make it to cover outside before being spotted, then ran, leaping over the scattered men, determined to ignore any potential moral qualms until he was out.
Once in the open air, Loki was fairly distressed to find a lack of available cover, so he rounded the nearest corner, and nearly gasped for relief upon spotting a forklift. He leapt into the driver’s seat, found a ratty-looking blanket thereupon, and draped it over his shoulders after shedding his suit-jacket and tucking it out of sight. There were keys in the ignition, which he promptly pocketed. For further effect, he slouched such that it looked like he’d been knocked out by force, his face mostly concealed by the controls he slumped on, and waited.
Two vehicles drove up, and men leapt out of them, perhaps a dozen men. Two were assigned to stay behind with the cars. A couple of them pointed at Loki, and one approached, giving him a quick, appraising look-over. He reported––after briefly putting two fingers on Loki’s neck––a man knocked out, but not dead, and a forklift with keys and keyring missing. It was dark enough outside the warehouse that they could see and smell the blanket, but not quite make out how expensive the shirt under it was.
They moved on, though one of them signaled to a driver, urging him over to pick up their fallen comrade in the forklift.
Loki waited, staying motionless, listening with half an ear to languages he couldn’t understand, though watching through one slightly-open eyelid, he could pick up some of the gist. They had one language in common, and it wasn’t first, or likely even second, for either of them; the resultant cultural and linguistic gaps were made up for with easily-understood, illustrative gestures. The driver opened up the doors, as most of the soldiers rolled in. After assurances from the driver that Loki didn’t look that heavy or that concussed, the driver was left alone and bent to see about how he might go about moving the man in the forklift.
Loki took the opportunity to punch him very hard, albeit a bit clumsily due to the awkward angle, in the throat, and the man stumbled back stiffly, unable to make any noise other than a painful-sounding wet hiss. The backward-stumble put the car between that driver and the line-of-sight of the other one.
Loki opened one eye long enough to verify that the first driver wasn’t going anywhere fast, and seemed to be turning funny colors whilst falling over. More good advice from the super-spy, he reflected, a bit disconcerted by the efficiency of it. For the umpteenth time, he reminded himself to never seriously piss off Natasha.
It took just over a minute for the first driver to become fully horizontal, barely managing small gasps, and for the second driver to get close enough to hear the sounds and thus rush over with a bit more haste. He got between Loki and the man on the ground. Loki rose quietly, and was right behind the second driver by the time the first managed a gesture and an alarmed noise. Loki pulled a gun from the second driver’s belt and leveled it to the back of his neck, letting him feel it settle such that a bullet would go right between two neck vertebrae. “Stay still, and quiet,” he hissed.
The man slowly raised his hands, but there was a careful deliberation to the movement that Loki didn’t trust at all.
So he knocked the guy out with the butt of his own pistol and left him in a heap on the ground. He then eyed the scarcely-breathing man now halfway into the driver’s seat of the large SUV, leveled the gun again, and smiled unpleasantly. “I designed this gun, you know. I know how to use it to its fullest potential, let’s say.”
The man stilled, and let Loki pull him back out of the vehicle. He froze when Loki took hold of his throat, and made a pained sound when the madman squeezed and tugged a bit, but something snapped properly back into place, at which point he sucked in a breath and fell to the ground coughing.
Loki knelt by him. “There are weapons hidden all around the place here. Where?”
The man stared up at him, wide-eyed.
Rolling his eyes, Loki tried again in broken Pashto, then slightly more coherent Russian, which had the man looking still more panicked.
“Oh good,” Loki mused, still in Russian. He had only learned Russian a year and a half ago and wasn’t half so comfortable with it as with most Latin-based languages, but he could get by. “Now you look as though you’ve just pissed yourself in terror, so not only am I right about the weapons, but they are big and important ones. Now, I’m going to ask you two questions, and if you don’t answer, or if you lie, I will shoot you in the face,” he said, all placid politeness and bad accent. “Do you understand?”
The man nodded slowly, reluctantly.
“Are any of the weapons even a little bit radioactive? Even if they haven’t told you, people tend to notice the lead-lined suits and other security measures of that sort. I’m sure you know them.”
After a long moment, clearly sifting through memory with discomfort, the man shook his head an muttered a negative.
“Good. Now, are any of them mine?”
The man gulped visibly, and very slowly nodded an affirmative.
“Good boy.” Loki knocked him out with a little more care than he had the other driver, and arranged him on the ground so as to lessen stress on his damaged throat. Then he muttered, “Lower power to field generator, focus mostly on magic-related blocks, but keep the others up. Keep electronics-interference a little more minimal for the moment.” Once the field tangibly let up a bit, Loki clambered into the SUV and pulled out his mobile, casting a shrewdly appraising eye over the systems incorporated into the rather new-looking vehicle. As suspected, there was a heavily modified GPS system, the usual radios, and also promising-looking screen with real-time display mapping the warehouses and showing where alarms, casualties and other little disturbances were. Nothing so handy as labels like ‘Armory #1’ but still better than he’d hoped. “JARVIS, can you tap into a few of these for me?”
A beep, then the display lit up, displaying a lot of red as JARVIS ran into trouble right off the bat. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected all of this to be so easy.” He worked silently with his AI for solid 5 minutes before getting into just the security system, which Loki was deeply irritated by; it should’ve taken less than two, for most any other system.
Then, most reassuringly, JARVIS’ voice emerged from the stereo system: “Are you well, Mr. Farbautisson?”
The inventor leaned back in his seat heavily, clinging to the adrenaline rush and endorphines that were helping him ignore his various injuries. He couldn’t succumb to relief––not yet. “Yes, JARVIS, sweetheart, I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“So nearly dead, then?”
“I might be shortly, but you’re to help me with that.” His tone brokered no opposition.
The AI notably hesitated, then reluctantly inquired, “How so?”
Loki grinned. “They have some things of mine. Can you reach out and wake a few of them up for me?”
After a few long seconds of testing, reaching out, JARVIS confirmed that he could, and that there was indeed a good deal of Forbisson Industries technology all around the place. Much of the more advanced computers had their systems as hacked and heavily modified as the SUV’s little computer, if not more so, but that couldn’t stop Loki, not now, and he was already learning how to make them bow to his whims as easily as he could with any other machines.
It took less than five minutes for all Hell broke loose.
~~
By the time Tony arrived, Loki was half a mile outside the warehouse complex, seated on the roof of that same SUV (now very much battered, dented, scarred and even a bit burnt-looking, with no glass left intact to boot) and watching as the whole complex’s buildings burned to the ground. His suit-jacket had met a horrible fate and fallen in battle, he had a bullet graze on his right side that had cut close enough he’d gotten a little glimpse of rib-bone when he first started dabbing up the blood. The improvised bandages were from the remains of his ridiculously expensive Egyptian cotton shirt. His knees were skinned like a kid’s, except that not many kids wore such expensive well-tailored trousers.
Tony, having arrived beside the vehicle with an air of confidence, caught a glimpse of Loki’s profile from ground level and hesitated. He merely stared for a long few moments, before regaining himself and deftly climbing up the side to sit beside the mad inventor on the roof of the now-hideous SUV.
“JARVIS mentioned that you dropped by with apparent intent to look for something, and it wasn’t me––not at first, in any case,” Loki said coolly, not so much as glancing at him, his tone even and almost casual except for an unusual looseness to it along with the chill, of a sort that only occurred when his usual loud and chaotic mess of thought-trains fell deathly quiet for a while. It was quiet now, except for the crackling of distant flames.
“Yes. I get distracted when someone offers me a challenge, even indirectly.” A long pause. “Their leader escaped?”
“Yes.” Loki didn’t move. He kept his eyes on the flames, his stare intent and unfathomable. His expression wasn’t a mask in any deliberate sort of way, as would have been more usual; instead, it was just naturally calm, slack, and chillingly serene. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Tony looked away from the inventor, toward the rather impressive conflagration, and considered. “A hypothetical question for you: what’s better than playing two sides against one another?”
That caused the inventor’s brow to furrow, just a little: a ripple in the surface of that oddly placid ferocity. “Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes a little, head tilted. “Three. Playing three against each other.” Loki at last turned his head a little, and met the god of mischief’s dark gaze, one eyebrow arched in silent questioning.
At that, Tony smiled a little. “Precisely.” Then he looked away toward the fire again, and made a broad, sweeping gesture with one hand. Then he glanced at Loki sidelong, very pointedly. “If I may?”
Loki blinked, then blinked again. “Pardon?”
“Well, they’re clearly yours.” Tony shrugged. “I do understand that.” There was a certain chill to his tone. “Just as the other two are very much mine, in lesser ways––but these of yours are very interesting, and promising, and alien enough to be believable for my purposes; so, I’m asking permission to play with them.” He offered a wicked half-smirk, with no little edge of cruelty to it. “I’ll leave the best bits for you, I promise.”
The inventor stared at him for a long moment, his expression still unmasked and yet unreadable until, to his own surprise as much as the trickster’s, Loki found himself slowly, lazily grinning. “You want them to be a smokescreen for something of yours.”
“They’re all smokescreens. At least, it will seem that way for a long while.” Tony was returning that fierce and war-like smile in full force. “It’s no danger to your world directly.”
“Define ‘directly’ for me.”
“Well, for instance, perhaps one of the game pieces is something Malekith wants. He thinks it’s here on earth, and I plan to let him keep thinking that. The thing is: it’s a big, powerful weapon. Might hurl the whole planet into an ice-age for a bit, accidentally, if things go a bit awry. They won’t though.”
“In theory.”
Tony snorted. “In theory,” he conceded.
Loki turned in place slightly, to face him a bit more, and saw the god of mischief’s gaze take in each and every one of his injuries, which he was still ignoring, buzzed and drained and numbly survival-mode as he still was. “What’s in it for you? What’s really in it for you? I need to know that. You know I do.”
“I do.” Tony opened his mouth to say more, then closed it, listening to the wind. “Damn. Those are yours, rather than your nemesis’; at least there’s that.”
The inventor scanned the horizon on all sides, and finally spotted and heard the tell-tale signs of airborne transport, coming in from the southwest. “Lucky they’re upwind. You might not’ve heard them.” He looked at Tony’s face again, and hooked a finger on the mostly-metal collar of the trickster’s armor, tugging the god of mischief forward by it, just a few inches. “I’m considering your offer, but we’re not done discussing this. Not by a long shot.”
Eyes bright, Tony nodded. “Agreed.” He rested a hand lightly over Loki’s waist, and another on his forearm, his touch cool enough to sink into his bones, not at all painfully this time. “Stay in once piece until then for me, Loki dear.” Then he vanished, quiet as a ghost for once. Loki wondered about that, and about how far a vanishing act like that could really send him.
Loki blinked a bit, then turned to glance toward the sounds of aircraft. After a moment, the lack of searing pain on across his side registered, and he rested a hand at his waist. He winced a little, because it still stung, but it was a mere sting rather than burning agony, and it hurt less to breath more deeply. Looking at his arm, he found the burns gone entirely, and flexed his fingers in an experimental fashion: no stiffness, no lingering tenderness. For a long moment, he was too bemused to process it. Then the lights of the anticipated rescue party fixed on his position and the last of his adrenaline rush drained away, and with it his clear-headedness.
By the time they brought him aboard, he was smiling maddeningly and making whatever quips he could manage, to try and cover how exhausted he was, even though he knew damn well that it didn’t fool anyone. He still evaded most medical staff until Bruce finally had enough and approached matters himself.
“Stay where you are,” he said, sharp and professional. “And sit still.”
Loki stared up at him with a child-like wide-eyed expression that would have looked less out of place on the face of any random demon listed in the Lesser Key of Solomon. “Be gentle with me,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes.
Bruce folded his arms across his chest. “Your bandages look like shit.”
“Well they served me very well as a shirt, which was their true calling, but they’ve been brought down by hard times and are struggling to make do,” Loki countered. “The bleeding is mostly stopped, I promise.”
“Off with it.”
“Yes, mum.” Obligingly, Loki unwound the strips of bloodied cotton from about his person until he sat there, stripped to the waist in a pair of trousers that were singed and worn with holes at the knees and a tattered rip along one shin. “Better?”
Bruce started his examination. “Your lack of self-preservation is showing. Where did this even come from?” He prodded the skin beside the cut along Loki’s ribs, which was now shallower and far less awful-looking: no visible bone, no cauterized bits here and there. “A blade?”
“I’m not sure, actually. It’s getting blurry, and one of them kept making me hallucinate,” Loki said, and it was mostly the truth. Mostly. When his utterly blasé tone earned him a mild glare, he lowered his gaze and shuffled his feet slightly. “Sorry, Dr. Banner.”
Rolling his eyes, Bruce told him to stand.
Loki obliged, and let him finish his examination of his front.
“You’re lucky, with all this bruising, that your ribs aren’t cracked.”
“They aren’t?” Loki sounded sincerely surprised. He recalled that particular painful impact against a concrete pillar fairly well. It was the first time he realized getting out of the armored car might have been a questionable tactic, no matter how much more easily he could wield some of his weapons whilst outside it.
He’d made do.
“No. Bruised, yes, maybe one or two light hairline fractures, but it would take a x-ray to be absolutely sure of that.”
Loki fell quiet, determined not to think about any additions to the list of injuries healed by a certain god of mischief––at least, not until he’d slept for half a day, eaten a lot of very unhealthy food, taken some painkillers, and at least one glass of scotch painkillers be damned.
“You’re okay, Loki?” Bruce sounded more genuinely worried by his sudden silence than by any of his myriad injuries so far.
“Getting there,” Loki lied, with an easy, tired smile. “It’s been a very long, and very explosive sort of day.”
Bruce nodded. “Sit. You’re dehydrated as hell. Whatever got your side must’ve been damn sharp for you to lose all the blood your shirt shows that you did, which is the main culprit. Can you drink?”
“Yes. Particularly if the water comes with a bit of whiskey in it.”
“No.”
“Gin?”
“No.”
“It’s medicinal.”
“No it’s not.”
“Fine. I will accept mere water.” He shot the doctor a sidelong look. “Water and maybe pain-killers?”
Bruce nodded.
“Fun ones?”
“You’re not that hurt.”
“Damn.” He smiled a little as Bruce laughed at him and walked off to get water and medication. Loki’s eyes fell shut for a long moment, air moving through the jet, some of it from outside despite tight seals all around. He could smell desert, and feel blood on his hands, sticky up to the wrists. His eyes snapped open and he sat very still, breathing slowly, focusing on monitoring his own thoughts and any discrepancies between what he saw straight ahead, and what he observed from out of the corners of his eyes.
Bruce reappeared, and Loki accepted his offerings with dull thanks.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
Suddenly too tired for some of his usual masks, Loki shot him the same look he’d worn while staring into the fires of his victory, along with the god of chaos and lies. “Are any of us, really?”
Bruce considered seriously. “Not really. But we get by without destroying too much in public.”
Loki nodded. “I’ll be back to functional levels soon enough. It’ll take me a few days, during which you’ll all see very little of me. And don’t worry: JARVIS will limit my alcohol intake, rest assured; he’s become quite zealous about it.”
The doctor snorted and shook his head. “I shouldn’t find that as comforting as I do, I think.”
“Yes, well. None of the Avengers were picked because we’re mentally stable paragons of normalcy and socially-acceptable behavior.”
“Very true.” Bruce rested a hand on his shoulder. “Keep me posted, though. No one else is half so entertainingly crazy as you, so you’re not allowed to self-destruct on us, you flashy bastard.”
“You’d just be bored stiff without another genius around, admit it.”
“Fine. It’s true. So stay in once piece for us, yeah?”
Loki blinked at the phrasing, but smiled a bit more sincerely nevertheless. “That’s always been the plan.” Once Bruce left, Loki closed his eyes again after only a bit of hesitation. He managed to doze lightly through the rest of the flight without any further disturbing interruptions.
Making of: Pernicious Prompting - Dangerous Animals
Can I just say that I love JARVIS? I really, really do. I had no idea this particular turn was going to be taken in the story, but JARVIS just sort of stepped in and decided to be a complete badass. Who am I to argue?
“JARVIS, I have given my word not to interfere with certain of your systems-”
“You keep your word to mortals and immortals––organic forms of sentience. Your ability to break promises to machines is still unknown,” the AI cut in.
Tony considered. “Actually, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And I am certain that I believe every word that leaves your mouth. It would truly be remiss of me to suspect that might be a dishonest statement.”
JARVIS, sassing the god of mischief. I'm having far too much fun with this.
Making of: Pernicious Prompting - Dangerous Animals
New Role-reversal!AU headcanon: Loki's version of JARVIS has the usual sarcasm and droll wit, but also a subtle prankster streak Loki has carefully programmed to ignore himself, Pepper, and other people he genuinely respects.
You can imagine all of the people who don't fall under that list.
"I won’t stand for that sort of slander, Mr. Barton.”
“You sort of generally won’t stand, JARVIS,” Clint suggested. “Lacking a sort of body, and all.” The small drone hovering beside Loki's shoulder cloaked itself again with an ominous hum. “Alright! Alright! I’m sorry!”
“Apology accepted, sir,” JARVIS responded.
Loki beamed down at him with unrestrained glee.
That is all.
