Debt (Chapter 10)
Title: Debt
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: FrostIron
Warnings: Some violence
Spoilers: Not for Avengers
Summary: Tony Stark shouldn't find Loki fascinating, but he does, because all he’s ever wanted to do is take things apart to see how they work. Besides, he’s never been any good at following the rules.
New? Story starts here. You can also read HERE on AO3 (link goes to first chapter)
Chapter 10
Predictably, when they get back to base, everything is in chaos. A squad of SHIELD soldiers run past in tight formation to a fleet of waiting cars, the more senior agents are shouting into headsets, and the Avengers are about to move out. The first thing Tony is greeted by is a shout of “Where the hell have you been?” Steve looks furious, which is pretty unusual for him. “We need to - ” He cuts off, because that’s the moment at which he looks properly and sees Loki, hands bound together, slumped sullenly in Tony’s grip.
“Sorry I’m late,” Tony says, dialling up his asshole persona as far as it’ll go. “I had to go get something back.” He gives Loki a little shake for good measure, which earns him a hot glare from the god. He’d probably have got a sharp retort, too, if it weren’t for the fact that Loki had tied a gag into his own mouth.
Thor frowns, studying the angry red scratches across Loki’s face. “My brother is hurt.”
Tony shrugs. “He started it. Look at my suit!” He gestures with his free hand at his mangled chest plate. “Besides, it’s nothing he can’t take, he still had enough energy to make a break for it twice on the way here.”
Loki snarls something inarticulate but probably insulting through the gag. He looks livid, mouth twisted uncomfortably, eyes narrow with anger. Tony can’t tell how much of his behaviour is based off of actually hating being manhandled like this as opposed to just acting, but he feels like he should be handing over an Oscar award.
Steve steps forwards, in command as always. “Alright. Good job, Tony, but for god’s sake what have I told you about running off on your own.” He sounds resigned, though; he knows Tony never listens. “Seems you’re lucky, Loki must still be weak from his capture.” Tony feels Loki shift just a little, probably offended, but he keeps his face straight. No sense in giving them away now through a smirk in the wrong place. “Now, I think we need to contain the prisoner. Properly this time.”
- - -
Loki is marched back to his cell under armed guard, hands cuffed, gag still in place.
Tony wants to go with him - to talk, or to taunt if the situation warrants it, or just to piss off the guards who will now be maintaining a 24-hour watch on Loki, no excuses, no matter how many Avengers are in the vicinity. But he can’t, because as he’s stepping out of his suit down in his workshop, calling to the automatic systems to wake up and start on another bout of repairs, he gets the call through the internal comms system to ‘Get your ass up to my office now, Stark,’. Fury sounds, appropriately, furious, so for once Tony doesn’t mess around and gets his ass up to his office. There’s a time and a place for disobedience, after all.
Across the desk, Fury fixes him with a one-eyed glare which is still pretty threatening, if a little lopsided. “I suppose this is the point where you come out with some smart-assed excuse as to why you let a dangerous criminal escape on your watch, after disobeying my direct orders, and then decided to go catch said criminal on your own, against all regulations.”
Tony nods, leaning back in his chair, because he’s got this one covered. “Your lackeys didn’t have sufficient security clearance to be present while I was gathering data on Loki. You know me, I’m a stickler for the regulations. And it’s not my fault he escaped.”
Fury looks like he might just pop a vein, which would be kind of entertaining. “Then who’d fault is it? He was under your watch, and he just up and left.”
“Yeah, and then I up and got him back.” Tony’s starting to get annoyed, because this is the bit of being an Avenger he hates, the petty rules and bureaucracy which tie him up more often than not. He doesn’t get on with Fury at the best of times, because authority and him tend to clash. It doesn’t help that he’s a little on edge; wary of being found out. “Look, I told you from the start that I didn’t even want to be part of this team; I’m only here because you need me.” He knows this is a lie; yeah, ok, at the start he’d come on-side because he was needed, but he’s part of the team now. He can’t abandon them that easily. “If you have some kind of problem with me, I’ll go back to doing my own thing and you can stark paying me the money you owe me for all the weapons I’ve designed for you since I got here.”
For a second, it does look like Fury will tell him to get the hell out, but Tony knows he’s not one for rash moves like that. “Unfortunately, you are still needed on the team. And it’s your teammates who’ll pay the price if Loki escapes, and it’s them who’ll be a man down if you go swanning off on your own like you think you’re immortal and wind up getting yourself killed because you picked a fight with the wrong guy. Maybe that’ll help you take this fucking seriously for once.” With that, Fury gestures for him to go.
Tony leaves, letting the door slam with perhaps more force than is necessary. He plays up the anger, because it neatly covers up the fact that he’s currently feeling hugely relieved. Loki’s lies worked - this time. The chance that they might not be as effective next time niggles at him. He needs space, he thinks, and a chance to set his brain back into order. The facility is too crowded right now, SHIELD operatives swarming along the corridors, all of them on high alert. Loki’s made them all twitchy; they’re all thinking the same thing: what if next time, he decides to fight his way out instead of just leaving?
Tony’s thinking along slightly different lines. He feels like he’s seeing the whole picture now, or at least as much of it as he’s ever going to get with Loki. But he’s lacking data - he can’t make a correlation, can’t extrapolate forwards to predict what’s going to happen next. Loki’s volatile, he knows that; a variable that can’t be controlled. And SHIELD have a nasty habit of finding out exactly what you don’t want them to. He chews this problem over in his mind. It doesn’t point to a good outcome, overall. For a brief second, he ponders what would happen if he decided to go out to pick up women in bars, then winces at the thought. Probably the result would end up being somewhat radioactive.
He goes down to his workshop, because it’s practically where he lives now, and it’s his which means he has the control of who he lets in, and because he needs to check the repairs running on his suit - although, true to his word, Loki only damaged things which could be put back together easily. It’s probably almost finished - apart from a few wires Tony snapped himself, and the new chestplate, the only damage is cosmetic. He wants to work on his prototype, to lose himself in it until he stops thinking, because it’s starting to give him a headache. He’s not cut out to put this much energy into people; machines are never this complicated.
He’s not really expecting to find Loki in his workshop, picking at the almost-complete prototype lying on one of the benches. At least this time it doesn’t look like there’s any damage being done; Loki’s picked up one of his screwdrivers and is undoing panel after panel, gazing into the inner workings of the machine. There’s an intense look on his face, like he’s drinking in information, and Tony wonders briefly if that’s what he looks like when he’s doing the same thing. He remembers Loki exploring the touchscreens in here earlier; watching for the way they work. It’s that, Tony thinks in the space between walking in and having Loki notice him, which separates Loki and Thor. Thor is agreeable, and he’s content to take someone’s word for it almost all the time. Loki, though. Loki wants to know.
Tony gets that feeling again, like he’s looking in the mirror.
Loki looks up, and catches Tony watching him. “Your machines are fascinating,” he says, waving a hand in a gesture which encompasses most of the workshop.
“Thanks,” Tony says, waking up his monitors from sleep with a wave of his hand. “You know, you should get yourself into technology. I bet you could make it do all kinds of crazy things.”
Loki smiles. “I don’t think you want to encourage me to do anything crazy.” He tips his head, eyes focused. “You’ve been having second thoughts, haven’t you?”
Tony smirks, keeping his eyes on his screens. Repairs are already complete on his suit; those automatic systems are good. “I’m way past second. This is a terrible idea, you know that.”
Loki nods, running his fingers across the armour plating of the prototype. “Oh, yes. At best, you’ll never be fully trusted by your team. You might even be forced out. At worst, we level the city between us.” He taps his nails on the armour. “This feels strange. What have you done?”
Tony doesn’t see any reason to lie, not that he’s get away with it anyway. “It’s self-repairing. Designed to put itself back together while still in use; should be useful in long-haul fights. But what you’re probably feeling is the magic-deflection underlayer.”
Loki looks up, meets his eyes. “This is for fighting me.”
“If it comes to it. If I have to. It defends against other energy surges, too. But yeah, I modelled it off the readings I took from you.”
There’s a thin smile just touching the corners of Loki’s mouth. “You know, when I first came to this planet, I greatly underestimated you humans. I didn’t think you capable of being so calculating.”
It doesn’t sound like an insult, but it’s not really a compliment either. “You want me to apologise? You know as well as I do it might turn out to be necessary. I’m not going to go toe-to-toe with you without some serious firepower on my side; you’re too strong for that and you know it.”
“I’m not criticising you.” Loki goes back to his inspection of the armour, running a fingertip along one of its joins, watching the flex of the metal under pressure. “Surely you don’t think that I’m not looking for every scrap of information I can gain while I’m here?”
That sets a thought in motion. “Yeah, that’s a point, what are you doing here? Surely you should be in a cell under so much surveillance that SHIELD scrambles its finest soldiers if you so much as sneeze?”
Loki smirks, still intent on the prototype. “As far as their sensors and cameras are concerned, I am in a cell, although I’m not currently sneezing.”
Tony narrows his eyes a little, trying to see any difference in Loki, and taps at one of his monitors. A scanner starts humming. “So, wait, are you really here? Or are you really there and this you that I’m talking to is just some magical construct?” He steps a little closer, and reaches out to touch the back of Loki’s hand. It feels normal, although the move earns him a raised eyebrow.
“What does your machine tell you?” Loki says. It feels a little like a test, but Tony wants to know, wants to understand how this works, so he checks the monitor anyway.
“It says you’re really here.” He looks up, and tries to look as confident as possible, because he trusts his technology, and he’s not so sure that trust extends to Loki.
“Then your technology is well designed.” Loki’s watching him now, and it strikes Tony suddenly that they’re both as uncertain as the other, both feeling like they just jumped into something without being able to see what lies ahead.
Tony can feel the questions the tension in the air, and it tastes like the start of something, and for second they just stand there, the two of them facing each other, neither willing to step forwards, make the first move. It feels like they’re on a precipice, waiting for something to tip them over the edge.
A klaxon starts to wail. The sound is loud enough to make them both jump; Tony’s surprised by how twitchy he is. He shoots a look at Loki, who shakes his head.
“Not me this time.” He whips his head around to look at the door. “Someone’s coming.” He vanishes suddenly, leaving no trace at all. Tony half-sees the scanner readings leap once, like a frantic heartbeat, before he hears a clatter of feet on the metal stairs outside and then Steve leans in through the doorway.
“Suit up, Tony. Looks like we’re all needed on this run.”
A/N: This chapter pretty much doubled in length between first and second drafts, as I basically had to re-write all of it. On the other hand it was about 100000x easier to re-write than the previous chapter. Chapter 9 = my official nemesis.
Also I’d like to take this moment to apologise for the extremely likely drop in quality that will be coming soon. I’ve hit the difficult bit of this story (as in, all the bits I rushed through the first time and so now need to re-do) and unfortunately it’s coincided neatly with the start of my exam season. I’m going to do my best to keep to the regular posting schedule and still maintain this at as high a quality as possible, but obviously exams are a bit more important, so I may have to make sacrifices. If I end up posting chapters I’m not happy with, I may re-write them after my exams are done, but this is just a heads up so you all know what’s going on when quality suddenly plummets and I start having typos on every third line XD
Next update Friday, my last day of term before exams eeek