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“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.”
“Uh, actually I'm planning to threaten you.”
“You should have left your armor on for that.”
Tony walked around behind the bar, put his bracelets on and started fixing himself a drink.
“Yeah. It's seen a bit of mileage and you've got the Glow-stick of Destiny. Would you like a drink?”
“Stalling me won't change anything.”
“No, no, no - threatening! No drink? You sure? I'm having one. See, the thing here - you’re really not that scary. I mean, sure… you’re basically immortal and clearly every bit as tough as your brother - the demigod - and have an intriguing skillset, according to him.”
Loki snarled at that.
“Oh, I assure you, mortal, if you are not scared then it is because you lack imagination. The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear? That was the plan.” he sneered.
Tony snorted a laugh and took a sip from his glass.
“Trust me, if there’s one thing I’ve never been accused of, it’s that. Also - not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they’ll come for you. There's no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us but it's all on you. All those words you’ve been spouting - a world made free from freedom?” Tony snorted. “Did you read that somewhere or are you coming up with this shit on the fly? Does Asgard have the equivalent of B movies? Pulp fiction, maybe?”
Loki’s eyes were wide at first and then narrowed dangerously as he was mocked. Tony leaned forward and rested his elbows on the bar.
“Right. Back to the threat. How about I give you what you want?”
Loki tilted his head to the side and frowned at Tony.
“You want to what?” he said, brow furrowed.
“A throne. You want to rule Earth? Fine. We surrender. Call off your army.”
Tony took another sip and tapped his bracelet thoughtfully. Loki stared at him, baffled. His eyes flicked to the scepter in his hand.
“Right. Like I thought. Glow-stick of Destiny, my ass. Let’s try something else. What say I rid you of your little problem,” he paused, and his eyes went to the scepter and then slowly back to Loki’s face, “and we address the larger one together? Preferably without your adopted sibling, because I gotta say - he kind of makes me want to blast him in the face on a regular basis.”
Loki let out a short involuntary laugh at that. “I usually opt for stabbing. It has years of tradition behind it.” His grin was more than a bit manic, but his eyes were oddly intense and fixed on Tony where he was leaning on the bar and tapping his fingers.
The elevator dinged and Loki whirled around. As the doors opened, Mjölnir came crashing through the plate glass window and clipped him in the side of the head. He went down hard, sprawling unconscious on the floor, the scepter skidding across the floor to clatter against the floor and come to rest against the wall.
Thor landed inside the room and Mjölnir flew back to his hand.
“Man of Iron! Did it work?”
Tony set the glass down and stepped around the bar, spreading his arms as the Mark VII armor deployed and assembled itself around him. “Let’s hope so. Does Natasha have Selvig?”
“Yes. I left them on your roof. She was attempting to rouse him.”
As the last piece of armor settled into place, Tony carefully walked over to the scepter and picked it up in a gauntleted hand.
“Thank you, JARVIS. Well timed. Widow, what’s your status?”
Natasha’s voice came over the comm in his helmet.
“Selvig says we can use the scepter to disrupt the barrier and shut down the portal.”
“Great. On my way. Thor?”
Thor looked up from where he was kneeling over Loki.
“Yes, Man of Iron?”
“You’re going to have to trust that he’ll be all right when he wakes up,” Tony said, not unsympathetically, “ They need your help out there while I get that portal closed. And then I need to secure both the scepter and the tesseract in my lab, because until we understand exactly what we’re dealing with here, we can’t risk either of you getting near it.”
“Understood. And thank you for seeing what I could not.”
Thor stood and took a last look at Loki, spun up Mjölnir, and flew out through the window. Tony frowned thoughtfully at the God on his floor, then looked at his shattered window, sighed briefly, and flew out after him.